Value-Based Care at Al Habib: From Fee-for-Service to Outcomes

Saudi Arabia’s Al Habib Medical Group was the first large operator to commit publicly to value-based contracting at scale. The plan looked radical at the time: move 70% of commercial payer revenue onto risk-adjusted case rates within three years.

The trick was sequencing. Al Habib started with cardiology bundles — the clinical pathway was the most standardized and the outcome signals were the clearest. Once the cardiology cohort proved out, other services followed quickly because the operational machinery was already running.

The payer side of the story matters too: Al Habib’s largest partner agreed to share claims data in near-real-time, which collapsed the feedback loop from quarters to weeks.