Healthcare reform legislation that comes out of Congress will result in payment reforms significantly changing the way hospitals do business.
That was the message Wednesday morning from Blair Childs, vice president of the Premier healthcare alliance and keynote speaker at the Healthcare Finance News Virtual Conference & Expo.
Childs thinks that the bill recently approved by the Senate Finance Committee contains important changes to the healthcare delivery and payment system to which hospitals particularly must pay heed.
Value-based purchasing "is coming," Childs said, noting that a percentage of hospital payments will probably be tied to performance by 2013. He said hospital quality measures would be developed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, in cooperation with external stakeholders, focusing on the most common high-cost conditions.
Reductions in hospital payments for "potentially avoidable" readmissions will almost certainly be part of the final bill, Childs said. The Senate bill reduces hospital payments by 20 percent if patients are readmitted within 7 days of leaving a hospital, and by 10 percent if readmitted within 15 days.
Congress will likely allocate approximately $10 billion to test new provider payment models. Childs suspects that Accountable Care Organization, or ACOs, will be high on the list, along with bundled payments.
He also noted that, beginning in 2014, the Senate bill penalizes hospitals with hospital-acquired infection rates in the top 25th percentile, reducing total payments by $1.2 billion.
The two-day Healthcare Finance News Virtual Conference and Exhibition continues on Thursday. In addition to a full schedule of educational sessions, the virtual conference includes an exhibit hall and provides attendees with opportunities to interact with colleagues from their own desk.
Access to the virtual conference is at http://www.himssvirtual.org/hfn/index.asp.