New administration likely to intervene in bundled-payment initiatives

Editor's Note

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a final rule December 20, 2016, on its cardiac and orthopedic bundled-payment initiatives, but President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, Rep Tom Price (R-Ga) is likely to stop the cardiac mandatory initiative scheduled to start July 1, 2017, the December 20 Modern Healthcare reports.

The final rule also expanded the orthopedic mandatory bundled-payment model for total hip and knee replacements to include hip and femur fracture repairs, but policy experts aren’t counting on this initiative surviving either.

Concerns from the healthcare industry center on the mandatory structure of the initiatives, and because CMS expanded its bundled-payment model before fully evaluating the results of the original initiatives, according to the report.

The CMS is moving ahead with a new initiative that would make hospitals in 98 markets financially accountable for the cost and quality of all care associated with bypass surgery and heart attacks. But its critics include the man likely to be the next HHS secretary.