Henry Ford drops out of total joint bundled-payment program

Editor's Note

Henry Ford Health System (Detroit, Michigan) is one of dozens of organizations that have dropped out of Medicare’s bundled payment model program in the past 3 years, the November 29 Modern Healthcare reports.

In 2013, three of Henry Ford Health System hospitals participated in the first phase of the Medicare bundled payment program. At that time hospitals had the option to stay in or drop out.

The total knee and hip replacement surgery bundled program was piloted at three hospitals in the Health System.

The program didn’t work because one-third of the services were conducted outside of the system (eg, if patients needed urgent or emergent care, they went where they wanted), but Henry Ford was still responsible for the financial aspects of that care. 

Henry Ford is one of dozens of other hospitals, medical groups and nursing homes nationally that have dropped out of the bundled payment model program over the past three years for a variety of reasons.