To be thinking of just our clinical roles is far too limiting. There is no doubt we need to be aligned with aerospace. The AFMS POM is then aggregated with the Army and Navy Medical Service POMs that will ultimately become the Defense Health Program Budget. It means that over the next few months your commanders will be analyzing data to optimize both financial and manpower resources. The Military Health System is in the process of developing a revised financing system that would be based on capitation.
Capitation is a set amount of money received or paid out based on a defined membership population.
Rates are usually defined in terms of units per member. At the time of this writing, revised financing in the Military Health System is several years in the future and will not be discussed in detail. As we stated earlier, none of these models are perfect and are based on data from a variety of information systems. Everything revolves around the population that you have enrolled because that drives your MTF funding, or budget. There are two fundamental steps in determining your manpower requirements.