Healthcare DIVE August 4, 2017
Dive Brief:
- A new JAMA report that reviewed the first year of the Medicare Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier (PVBM) Program found providers who served “more socially high-risk patients had lower quality and lower costs, and practices that served more medically high-risk patients had lower quality and higher costs.”
- The finding led to fewer bonuses and more penalties for high-risk practices.
- The study authors said value-based payment programs may financially harm practices that “disproportionately serve high-risk patients.”
Dive Insight:
CMS created the PVBM to measure the quality and cost of care provided to Medicare beneficiaries. The program bases payments on providers’ performance on quality and cost measures and rewards quality performance and lower costs.
The agency began to...