By Brian Sherman
Lissa Lara is on a decades-long journey to free physicians from the everyday constraints of running a business so they can spend their time providing their patients with top-of-the-line medical care. Along the way, she hopes to finish the transition from fee-for-service to value-based care reimbursement that will lower health care costs and improve outcomes for patients.
Lara serves as the CEO for three distinct but related organizations: Liberty Doctors, a group of more than 60 physicians, mostly in the Charleston area but also in Aiken and Myrtle Beach; Quality Healthcare Development, which provides doctors with an array of business resources; and Freedom Healthcare Alliance, an accountable care organization dedicated to providing top-notch care to Medicare recipients while restraining the rising costs of the federal program.
“The most important part of my job is to successfully serve my clients – the physicians – and make their lives easier and more patient-focused. In turn, that serves their patients. My goal is to make sure all patients are happy and satisfied and physicians are successful,” said Lara.
Along those lines, she provides a “multitude” of services for Liberty Doctors, including accounting, human resources, payroll, billing, collections, contracting, recruitment, business development, quality initiatives and credentialing.
And her job sometimes includes going to war with insurance companies.
“I fight with them every day. I take that battle on,” she said, adding that during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, the costs of medical supplies, personnel and other items have risen sharply, but compensation from the federal government and insurance companies hasn’t kept pace. “It’s been an enormous struggle to get payers to understand that everything costs more so they should pay us more. After the pandemic, the total cost of care went up 20%, with no additional reimbursement from payers.”
“I’m an advocate for the physicians getting insurance companies to understand our value to them. To get them to come to the table and negotiate quality initiatives and fee-for-service rates can be difficult,” she said.
Despite rising health care costs, under Lara’s leadership, Liberty has saved the Medicare program nearly $26 million in the past five years. That money was split 50/50 between the physicians’ group and the federal government from 2019 to 2023, while Liberty earned the right to keep 75% of the savings in 2024.
Liberty Doctors helped reduce costs through the use of care managers, transitional care management, nurse care coordinators, closing gaps in care, working with clinical teams to provide the right actionable data and various programs for patients with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and hypertension.
“We look for ways to provide great quality care but at a lower cost,” Lara explained.
She pointed out that the traditional fee-for-service model of paying for medical care is – and should be – on the way out, in favor of value-based care, a model that focuses on improving patient outcomes rather than on costs. She said the success of what comes next for the U.S. health care system depends on the eventual complete transition to value-based care.
“This is the way we do it – a partnership between payers and providers,” she said. “We’re not getting fully compensated in the traditional way. I’m hoping we make that full transition. We want lower costs for payers, patients and employers. If we do that, everyone wins.”
“Their future depends on that and doing it well,” Lara said of Liberty Doctors and other medical professionals she serves. “If they are prepared for the value-based care model, they will be successful.”
Lissa Lara
CEO: Liberty Doctors; Quality Healthcare Development; Freedom Healthcare Alliance
8761 Dorchester Road, North Charleston
843-225-8304
libertydoctors.com
