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The federal government is moving toward offering monetary rewards for reporting on specific performance indicators. When hospitals begin to seek those rewards, hospitalists will be integrally involved.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been tasked with developing an approach to value-based purchasing (VBP) for Medicare hospital services beginning in fiscal year 2009. Once the proposal is complete and approved by Congress, hospitals will receive differential payments tied to their performance.
VBP is similar to pay for performance (P4P) in that it links a bonus payment to reporting on performance of specific procedures. But the payment in this case is awarded to a hospital rather than a physician. The goals for the CMS proposal include:
- Improve clinical quality;
- Address underuse, overuse, and misuse of services;
- Encourage patient-centered care;
- Reduce adverse events and improve patient safety;
- Avoid unnecessary costs;
- Stimulate investments in structural components and the re-engineering of care processes;
- Make performance results transparent to and usable by consumers; and
- Avoid creating additional disparities in healthcare and work to reduce existing disparities.
CMS has hosted two listening sessions on the VBP program, during which healthcare providers were able to directly offer suggestions and opinions. The latest information, including an options paper based on the first listening session, is available online at www.cms.hhs.gov/center/hospital.asp.
“I was impressed with their responsiveness to the feedback they received at two listening sessions,” says Gregory B. Seymann, MD, associate clinical professor, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine, and a member of SHM’s Public Policy Committee. “I can see that the second options paper incorporates a lot of the comments from the first session.”
Aligning Measures
SHM has expressed support for CMS’ VBP proposal in a letter to the agency that also urged CMS to select candidate measures for hospitals that align with those for individual physicians under the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), which started July 1.
“These are very similar programs; one rewards hospitals for performing certain processes of care, and one rewards physicians for performing certain processes,” Dr. Seymann explains. “We’re simply asking CMS to make sure the measures [in VBP] match up with what physicians are asked to do. Many people voiced the same comment in the listening session.”
Although there are just 17 candidate measures proposed for the first year of the VBP program, the expectation is to add a considerable number as the program continues. Many candidate measures are similar or identical to those in the PQRI, such as giving aspirin on arrival and giving aspirin, beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors on discharge for patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Additionally, the proposed measures are identical to those in the current P4P program most hospitals already participate in, known as Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU). The difference will be that instead of getting credit just for reporting the data as they do now, starting in 2009 hospitals must report publicly and perform at a certain level to get a payment update.
“Physicians, especially hospitalists, will need to watch this closely, as it is expected that the PQRI program, which is similar to RHQDAPU on the hospital level, will ultimately transition to a pay-for-performance program such as VBP,” says Dr. Seymann. “We can learn from the bumps in the road in the hospitals’ experience, and hopefully SHM can be active in ensuring that similar problems are anticipated prior to a physician-level pay-for-performance rollout. Furthermore, measures that will apply to hospitalists will likely mirror the hospital VBP measures.”
Rewards Program
Hospitals participating in the proposed VBP program can earn rewards based on two different criteria.
“This aspect is far and away the most important part of this program coming from CMS,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’ve learned from experience with the Premier [Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration] project on hospital value-based purchasing that the hospitals that started out doing the best got the lion’s share of the reward because they were already doing well. Unfortunately, those that started at the bottom showed greater overall improvement but didn’t reach the top performance threshold, so they saw no financial recognition.”
So in the proposed VBP program, hospitals can demonstrate quality through overall performance on specific measures or through improvement over time in specific measures.
“Hospitals that reach the benchmark—the median of the top decile of performance—get the maximum number of points toward achieving the reward,” explains Dr. Seymann. “But hospitals can gain some points as long as they fall within the attainment range [between the 50th percentile and the mean of the top decile], proportional to how well they do. You get points for both the amount of improvement and the absolute attainment, and whichever score is higher comprises your score on that measure.”
Dr. Seymann calls this adjustment in the incentive structure “the most positive piece of this program,” explaining, “All hospitals have the opportunity to participate and to earn rewards.”
What It Means for Hospitalists
When VBP becomes a reality, how will that affect hospitalists?
“A lot of what hospitalists do for hospitals is improve quality,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’re likely to be asked to partner with their hospitals to put protocols in place for value-based purchasing. … Hospitals can’t make this work without physician participation, and a lot of hospital medicine groups are aligned with their hospitals on quality-improvement measures.”
It seems inevitable PQRI will morph into a CMS P4P or value-based purchasing program—or both. Whatever happens with these demonstration projects, hospitalists will be reporting on measures, and SHM wants to ensure those measures are appropriate.
“There are only 17 measures now; that’s a narrow sample to define quality at a hospital,” Dr. Seymann points out regarding VBP. “SHM will want to be involved in identifying gaps in care and recommending more measures in the future—like care coordination.” TH
Jane Jerrard also writes “Career Development” for The Hospitalist.
The federal government is moving toward offering monetary rewards for reporting on specific performance indicators. When hospitals begin to seek those rewards, hospitalists will be integrally involved.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been tasked with developing an approach to value-based purchasing (VBP) for Medicare hospital services beginning in fiscal year 2009. Once the proposal is complete and approved by Congress, hospitals will receive differential payments tied to their performance.
VBP is similar to pay for performance (P4P) in that it links a bonus payment to reporting on performance of specific procedures. But the payment in this case is awarded to a hospital rather than a physician. The goals for the CMS proposal include:
- Improve clinical quality;
- Address underuse, overuse, and misuse of services;
- Encourage patient-centered care;
- Reduce adverse events and improve patient safety;
- Avoid unnecessary costs;
- Stimulate investments in structural components and the re-engineering of care processes;
- Make performance results transparent to and usable by consumers; and
- Avoid creating additional disparities in healthcare and work to reduce existing disparities.
CMS has hosted two listening sessions on the VBP program, during which healthcare providers were able to directly offer suggestions and opinions. The latest information, including an options paper based on the first listening session, is available online at www.cms.hhs.gov/center/hospital.asp.
“I was impressed with their responsiveness to the feedback they received at two listening sessions,” says Gregory B. Seymann, MD, associate clinical professor, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine, and a member of SHM’s Public Policy Committee. “I can see that the second options paper incorporates a lot of the comments from the first session.”
Aligning Measures
SHM has expressed support for CMS’ VBP proposal in a letter to the agency that also urged CMS to select candidate measures for hospitals that align with those for individual physicians under the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), which started July 1.
“These are very similar programs; one rewards hospitals for performing certain processes of care, and one rewards physicians for performing certain processes,” Dr. Seymann explains. “We’re simply asking CMS to make sure the measures [in VBP] match up with what physicians are asked to do. Many people voiced the same comment in the listening session.”
Although there are just 17 candidate measures proposed for the first year of the VBP program, the expectation is to add a considerable number as the program continues. Many candidate measures are similar or identical to those in the PQRI, such as giving aspirin on arrival and giving aspirin, beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors on discharge for patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Additionally, the proposed measures are identical to those in the current P4P program most hospitals already participate in, known as Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU). The difference will be that instead of getting credit just for reporting the data as they do now, starting in 2009 hospitals must report publicly and perform at a certain level to get a payment update.
“Physicians, especially hospitalists, will need to watch this closely, as it is expected that the PQRI program, which is similar to RHQDAPU on the hospital level, will ultimately transition to a pay-for-performance program such as VBP,” says Dr. Seymann. “We can learn from the bumps in the road in the hospitals’ experience, and hopefully SHM can be active in ensuring that similar problems are anticipated prior to a physician-level pay-for-performance rollout. Furthermore, measures that will apply to hospitalists will likely mirror the hospital VBP measures.”
Rewards Program
Hospitals participating in the proposed VBP program can earn rewards based on two different criteria.
“This aspect is far and away the most important part of this program coming from CMS,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’ve learned from experience with the Premier [Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration] project on hospital value-based purchasing that the hospitals that started out doing the best got the lion’s share of the reward because they were already doing well. Unfortunately, those that started at the bottom showed greater overall improvement but didn’t reach the top performance threshold, so they saw no financial recognition.”
So in the proposed VBP program, hospitals can demonstrate quality through overall performance on specific measures or through improvement over time in specific measures.
“Hospitals that reach the benchmark—the median of the top decile of performance—get the maximum number of points toward achieving the reward,” explains Dr. Seymann. “But hospitals can gain some points as long as they fall within the attainment range [between the 50th percentile and the mean of the top decile], proportional to how well they do. You get points for both the amount of improvement and the absolute attainment, and whichever score is higher comprises your score on that measure.”
Dr. Seymann calls this adjustment in the incentive structure “the most positive piece of this program,” explaining, “All hospitals have the opportunity to participate and to earn rewards.”
What It Means for Hospitalists
When VBP becomes a reality, how will that affect hospitalists?
“A lot of what hospitalists do for hospitals is improve quality,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’re likely to be asked to partner with their hospitals to put protocols in place for value-based purchasing. … Hospitals can’t make this work without physician participation, and a lot of hospital medicine groups are aligned with their hospitals on quality-improvement measures.”
It seems inevitable PQRI will morph into a CMS P4P or value-based purchasing program—or both. Whatever happens with these demonstration projects, hospitalists will be reporting on measures, and SHM wants to ensure those measures are appropriate.
“There are only 17 measures now; that’s a narrow sample to define quality at a hospital,” Dr. Seymann points out regarding VBP. “SHM will want to be involved in identifying gaps in care and recommending more measures in the future—like care coordination.” TH
Jane Jerrard also writes “Career Development” for The Hospitalist.
The federal government is moving toward offering monetary rewards for reporting on specific performance indicators. When hospitals begin to seek those rewards, hospitalists will be integrally involved.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been tasked with developing an approach to value-based purchasing (VBP) for Medicare hospital services beginning in fiscal year 2009. Once the proposal is complete and approved by Congress, hospitals will receive differential payments tied to their performance.
VBP is similar to pay for performance (P4P) in that it links a bonus payment to reporting on performance of specific procedures. But the payment in this case is awarded to a hospital rather than a physician. The goals for the CMS proposal include:
- Improve clinical quality;
- Address underuse, overuse, and misuse of services;
- Encourage patient-centered care;
- Reduce adverse events and improve patient safety;
- Avoid unnecessary costs;
- Stimulate investments in structural components and the re-engineering of care processes;
- Make performance results transparent to and usable by consumers; and
- Avoid creating additional disparities in healthcare and work to reduce existing disparities.
CMS has hosted two listening sessions on the VBP program, during which healthcare providers were able to directly offer suggestions and opinions. The latest information, including an options paper based on the first listening session, is available online at www.cms.hhs.gov/center/hospital.asp.
“I was impressed with their responsiveness to the feedback they received at two listening sessions,” says Gregory B. Seymann, MD, associate clinical professor, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine, and a member of SHM’s Public Policy Committee. “I can see that the second options paper incorporates a lot of the comments from the first session.”
Aligning Measures
SHM has expressed support for CMS’ VBP proposal in a letter to the agency that also urged CMS to select candidate measures for hospitals that align with those for individual physicians under the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI), which started July 1.
“These are very similar programs; one rewards hospitals for performing certain processes of care, and one rewards physicians for performing certain processes,” Dr. Seymann explains. “We’re simply asking CMS to make sure the measures [in VBP] match up with what physicians are asked to do. Many people voiced the same comment in the listening session.”
Although there are just 17 candidate measures proposed for the first year of the VBP program, the expectation is to add a considerable number as the program continues. Many candidate measures are similar or identical to those in the PQRI, such as giving aspirin on arrival and giving aspirin, beta-blockers, and ACE inhibitors on discharge for patients with acute myocardial infarction.
Additionally, the proposed measures are identical to those in the current P4P program most hospitals already participate in, known as Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU). The difference will be that instead of getting credit just for reporting the data as they do now, starting in 2009 hospitals must report publicly and perform at a certain level to get a payment update.
“Physicians, especially hospitalists, will need to watch this closely, as it is expected that the PQRI program, which is similar to RHQDAPU on the hospital level, will ultimately transition to a pay-for-performance program such as VBP,” says Dr. Seymann. “We can learn from the bumps in the road in the hospitals’ experience, and hopefully SHM can be active in ensuring that similar problems are anticipated prior to a physician-level pay-for-performance rollout. Furthermore, measures that will apply to hospitalists will likely mirror the hospital VBP measures.”
Rewards Program
Hospitals participating in the proposed VBP program can earn rewards based on two different criteria.
“This aspect is far and away the most important part of this program coming from CMS,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’ve learned from experience with the Premier [Hospital Quality Incentive Demonstration] project on hospital value-based purchasing that the hospitals that started out doing the best got the lion’s share of the reward because they were already doing well. Unfortunately, those that started at the bottom showed greater overall improvement but didn’t reach the top performance threshold, so they saw no financial recognition.”
So in the proposed VBP program, hospitals can demonstrate quality through overall performance on specific measures or through improvement over time in specific measures.
“Hospitals that reach the benchmark—the median of the top decile of performance—get the maximum number of points toward achieving the reward,” explains Dr. Seymann. “But hospitals can gain some points as long as they fall within the attainment range [between the 50th percentile and the mean of the top decile], proportional to how well they do. You get points for both the amount of improvement and the absolute attainment, and whichever score is higher comprises your score on that measure.”
Dr. Seymann calls this adjustment in the incentive structure “the most positive piece of this program,” explaining, “All hospitals have the opportunity to participate and to earn rewards.”
What It Means for Hospitalists
When VBP becomes a reality, how will that affect hospitalists?
“A lot of what hospitalists do for hospitals is improve quality,” says Dr. Seymann. “They’re likely to be asked to partner with their hospitals to put protocols in place for value-based purchasing. … Hospitals can’t make this work without physician participation, and a lot of hospital medicine groups are aligned with their hospitals on quality-improvement measures.”
It seems inevitable PQRI will morph into a CMS P4P or value-based purchasing program—or both. Whatever happens with these demonstration projects, hospitalists will be reporting on measures, and SHM wants to ensure those measures are appropriate.
“There are only 17 measures now; that’s a narrow sample to define quality at a hospital,” Dr. Seymann points out regarding VBP. “SHM will want to be involved in identifying gaps in care and recommending more measures in the future—like care coordination.” TH
Jane Jerrard also writes “Career Development” for The Hospitalist.