Home Health & Hospice Week

Industry Note:

Joint Replacement Bundling Coming To 67 Cities

Providers get an extra 3 months to prepare for the hospital-driven payment model.

You may have to make some big changes to how you work with hospitals if you want to keep your stream of joint replacement patient referrals.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has finalized its Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model. The new program will take effect in 67 metro areas starting April 1, CMS says in a release about the final rule.

Change: That’s three months later than CMS offered in its proposed rule. And the number of MSAs is down from 75.

The program will penalize or reward hospitals based on the cost of the patient’s care for the 90-day period beginning with the procedure, CMS explains. Home health agency payments will not be directly affected for these patients. However, hospital practices and referral patterns for the patients are expected to be heavily influenced by the model. More information is at https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/cjr.

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