Bundled payment attracts providers—but will they sign?

The fast-rising number of healthcare providers joining a trial run of bundled Medicare payments signals widespread thirst to explore risk-based reimbursement models, but the success of the initiative will depend on how many take the leap.

Roughly 4,100 providers will join 2,400 hospitals, nursing homes and medical groups as candidates for Medicare's Bundled Payment for Care Improvement initiative, the CMS Innovation Center said Thursday. At this stage, providers vet their performance under the possible bundled payments to see whether they can stomach the risk.

Not all of the candidates will agree to actually enter intobundled-payment contracts. In the first crop, 86 did not and 236 went ahead.

“I think the attrition rate is going to be important,” said Francois de Brantes, executive director of the Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute. A large percentage backing out should raise questions about what prompted the exit “so that ultimately we can try to stimulate the right type of market answer to those issues,” he said.

Read the full story via Modern Healthcare.