Bundled payments are the fastest growing payment type within healthcare organizations, showing a 6% projected growth rate over the next five years. These forecast estimates bundled payments will have a 17% share of all medical payment types by 2022.
Bundled payment programs offer physicians and ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) significant opportunities for cost savings and patient experience improvements, especially for high-volume, high-cost procedures.
But designing and executing a successful bundle payment program is challenging. Organizations must have the time, expertise, and resources to structure a program that has constantly changing components: different participants, risk factors, and stakeholder needs.
Regent Surgical Health has developed a new guide designed to help physician practices and ASCs overcome the steep learning curve of understanding and organizing bundled payments. The guide outlines three strategies to get organizations up to speed with the market and ready to launch a bundled payment program:
- Close the knowledge gap
- Negotiate a bundle
- Identify key stakeholders
In this blog we look closely at closing the knowledge gap.
Hospitals have traditionally had the knowledge and resources to spearhead the development of new payment types. But forward-thinking ASCs and physicians are now seeing how they can benefit from taking a leadership role in this innovative environment.
Their first step must be to close the knowledge gap that blocks them from moving from fee-for-service to value-based payment systems. Bundles are structured entirely different; an effective bundle requires expertise in factors such as:
- Physician, facility, and anesthesia costs
- Regulatory information
- Pricing data from all potential providers
- Options for care pathways
- Payer risk models
- Benefits programs
Structuring a successful bundle is a difficult and time-consuming job, and a single mistake can undo the value of a contract and put an entire facility at risk. Practices and ASCs often don’t have the internal resources to manage this project on their own. But by working with a partner with expertise in bundled payments, facilities can take advantage of their knowledge, resources, and experience.
Ready to design and execute a bundled payment program? Download the full whitepaper.