Archive: 10 January 2018

CMS introduces new payment model for both inpatient and outpatient care

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the launch of a new voluntary bundled payment model called Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced). Under traditional fee-for-service payment, Medicare pays providers for each individual service they perform. Under this bundled payment model, participants can earn additional payment if all expenditures for a beneficiary’s episode of care are under a spending target that factors in quality.

Bundled payments create incentives for providers and practitioners to work together to coordinate care and engage in continuous improvement to keep spending under a target amount. BPCI Advanced participants may receive payments for performance on 32 different clinical episodes which are listed below.

Of note, BPCI Advanced will qualify as an Advanced Alternative Payment Model (Advanced APM) under the Quality Payment Program (QPP). Under Advanced APMs, providers take on financial risk to earn the Advanced APM incentive payment.

BPCI Advanced will operate under a total-cost-of-care concept, in which the total Medicare fee for services (FFS) spending on all items and services furnished to a BPCI Advanced Beneficiary during the  Clinical Episode, including outlier payments, will be part of the Clinical Episode expenditures for purposes of the Target Price and reconciliation calculations, unless specifically excluded.

Clinical Episodes

BPCI Advanced will initially include 29 inpatient Clinical Episodes and 3 outpatient Clinical Episodes. Participants selected to participate in BPCI Advanced beginning on October 1, 2018, must commit to be held accountable for one or more Clinical Episodes and may not add or drop such Clinical Episodes until January 1, 2020.

Inpatient Clinical Episodes – 29

  • Disorders of the liver excluding malignancy, cirrhosis, alcoholic hepatitis *
    *(New episode added to BPCI Advanced)
  • Acute myocardial infarction
  • Back & neck except spinal fusion
  • Cardiac arrhythmia
  • Cardiac defibrillator
  • Cardiac valve
  • Cellulitis
  • Cervical spinal fusion
  • COPD, bronchitis, asthma
  • Combined anterior posterior spinal fusion
  • Congestive heart failure
  • Coronary artery bypass graft
  • Double joint replacement of the lower extremity
  • Fractures of the femur and hip or pelvis
  • Gastrointestinal hemorrhage
  • Gastrointestinal obstruction
  • Hip & femur procedures except major joint
  • Lower extremity/humerus procedure except hip, foot, femur
  • Major bowel procedure
  • Major joint replacement of the lower extremity
  • Major joint replacement of the upper extremity
  • Pacemaker
  • Percutaneous coronary intervention
  • Renal failure
  • Sepsis
  • Simple pneumonia and respiratory infections
  • Spinal fusion (non-cervical)
  • Stroke
  • Urinary tract infection

Outpatient Clinical Episodes – 3

  • Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI)
  • Cardiac Defibrillator
  • Back & Neck except Spinal Fusion