This week, Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, joined the honorable Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), for a roundtable discussion on how bundled payments can further ongoing efforts to transition Medicare from a volume-based payment system to one that reimburses for care coordination, quality, and innovation. Bundled payments are a reimbursement mechanism for the treatment of patients with specific conditions.

[x_image type=”none” src=”http://blog.medicarerights.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/baker-burwell.jpg” alt=”” link=”false” href=”#” title=”” target=”” info=”none” info_place=”top” info_trigger=”hover” info_content=””]Pictured left to right: Sylvia Mathews Burwell, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and Joe Baker, President at the Medicare Rights Center “We remain firmly supportive of commitments made by HHS to pay for high-value care—as opposed to high-volume care,” said Mr. Baker. “Spending fewer Medicare dollars on higher quality care is in the best interest of older adults, people with disabilities, and their families. We welcome the agency’s proposal on bundling for cardiac care and hip surgeries, and we expect to comment on provisions involving beneficiary notice, monitoring for care access, and more.”

A primary goal for the Medicare Rights Center is to make certain that patients and their advocates are fully engaged in the design, implementation, and evaluation of new and proposed care models, including any that rely on bundled payments.

Engaging patients at every level, including the point of care, within quality improvement efforts, and within program design, implementation, governance, and evaluation, is essential to the success of bundled payment initiatives. As part of any new care model, Medicare Rights continues to encourage HHS to embrace shared-decision making and care planning, ombudsman programs, well-designed notices, patient-reported outcome measures, and other tools that facilitate adequate patient and consumer involvement.