Pay For Performance:
Medicare Chugs Closer To Home Health P4P System
Published on Thu May 10, 2012
Will you have to pay for your patients' high rehospitalization rates? The pay for performance train may have lost steam in recent years, but it appears to be picking up speed again. "The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) views implementation of a home health value-based purchasing (VBP) program as an important step in revamping how Medicare pays for health care services, moving the program towards rewarding better value, outcomes, and patient-focused care instead of the volume of services provided," CMS says in a report about P4P -- now called VBP -- which the agency sent to Congress recently. "Using financial incentives to reward quality and improvement in health care, VBP programs aim to hold providers accountable for the quality of care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries, promote more effective, efficient and high quality care processes, and address the variation in quality across care settings." P4P combats fraud: A VBP program [...]