Starting next October, CMS is going to reduce all discharge inpatient payments by 1% to create a VBP pool. Over the next few years, that rate will increase until 2017 when the pool will hit a cap of 2%. Based on a complicated calculation that includes scores on clinical outcomes and HCHAPS, an organization may receive their full payment back, may receive less than that amount or may receive more than that.
So what’s the point?
The goal is to move towards better consumer driven healthcare where outcomes and quality matter most. It’s time to put away the phrases of “Well we’re a safety net provider” or “Our patients are just different” and move towards acknowledging this coming change and that we need to see this institution for what it is: a first rate hospital for all patients, not just those in need.
Maybe you think that’s not fair, that there should be a way to level the playing field between the top and the bottom, but to do so would mean we would have to acknowledge that we cannot compete with the “big boys” in terms of quality or outcomes, and that just isn’t the case. We embrace this challenge to improve our HCHAPS scores and have publicly reported data that shows how great our institution is.
Everyone impacts the score. From saying “Hello” to everyone in the halls to picking-up trash or helping a stranger find their way, it creates the kind of culture we need to succeed.
While those are indirect influences, HIM has some direct:
·If we are behind on scanning and a doctor goes to access PowerChart and a note isn’t there and he gets mad and his frustrations may be visible to our patients who then have a bad experience
·If we don’t release the right records or release them timely, even though there isn’t an ROI question on the survey, our patients would score the hospital lower because they are going to dock us for that
Everyone plays a part. From the top-executives to the front-line staff.
There is value in VBP, it just is up to us demonstrate the highest values.
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