CMS' Value-Based Purchasing Forum: The Time is Now to Shift to Quality Outcomes

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Office of Clinical Standards held its open door forum Wed., July 27, which covered its FY 2013 Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program and how the program will impact hospital reimbursement for their services to Medicare beneficiaries.

Various speakers explained what the Hospital VBP Program involves, how hospitals will be evaluated, how the program is set up logistically and how the program will play out over the next several fiscal years.

Jean Moody-Williams, director of the Quality Improvement Group within CMS' Office of Clinical Standards and Quality, said the Hospital VBP Program will be funded by a one percent withholding from participating hospitals' diagnosis-related group payments, but hospitals excluded from the program will not have that one percent withheld from their base operating DRG payments.

Ms. Williams also emphasized that the performance period for FY 2013 domains began on July 1, 2011. Therefore, hospitals should be fully aware of the 12 clinical processes of care, which account for 70 percent of the VBP domain, and of the eight patient experiences of care, which account for the other 30 percent of the VBP domain, because today's performance on these measures will impact future payments.

The forum ended with a question-and-answer session and how public comments can be made about the program for FY 2014.

"The goal of CMS through the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program is to link payments to quality outcomes," Ms. Williams said. "We really are starting to get away from asking, 'How much did you do?' to 'How well did you do and how was it for the patient?'"

Download the slides of the forum on the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program (pdf).

Related Articles on Value-Based Purchasing:

CMS to Host Forum on Value-Based Purchasing Program
What Value-Based Purchasing Will Mean for Hospitals, Other Providers
HFMA Finds Hospitals Preparing for Shift to Value-Based Healthcare

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