Bundled Payment Program Does Not Drive Hospitals to Perform More Procedures
One concern about bundled payment — the method of paying health care providers upfront for all the services included in a single episode, or bundle, of care — is that while it might lower costs per episode, it could encourage hospitals to perform more procedures than they otherwise would under fee-for-service. Another concern is that hospitals could cherry-pick patients who are younger or in better health.
New research supported by the Commonwealth Fund may help to quell these fears. Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Amol Navathe, M.D., and colleagues found that hospitals participating in Medicare’s voluntary Bundled Payments for Care Improvement program did not perform significantly more surgeries for lower extremity joint replacement. The researchers also found the program was generally not leading hospitals to change their case mix in a bid to avoid higher-risk patients.
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