Dive Brief:
- The Center for American Progress (CAP) and other health policy leaders issued a joint letter to HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell advocating further advancement in Medicare payment reform.
- The signatories seek additional mandatory bundled payment demonstrations, arguing they would show stakeholders -- including hospitals, physicians, device manufacturers, skilled nursing facilities, and home healthcare agencies -- that aggressive expansion is coming for bundled payments and other payment reforms.
- CAP has long advocated for Medicare to expand its most successful bundled payment models, including its Acute Care Episode demonstration project.
Dive Insight:
While CAP argues for expansion to payment reform to help Medicare contain healthcare costs and improve quality, studies show progress is indeed already underway. As previously reported, HHS aims to tie 50% of traditional Medicare payments to alternative models, including ACOs and bundled payments, by late 2018. Further, hospitals and payers expect bundled payment to top 17% of medical payments in five years.
Regarding the next direction for a mandatory bundled payment demonstration, CAP is asking for one targeting cardiac procedures, potentially to include coronary artery bypass grafting, stent placement, cardiac catheterization, pacemaker placement, and management of congestive heart failure.
"We believe there is an urgency to moving forward with additional mandatory demonstrations," the CAP letter stated. "The market will respond to long periods of inaction or uncertainty. But additional actions this year will keep the momentum going and help keep the brake on healthcare cost growth. "