Bundled payments is a highly innovative payment model that is receiving an immense level of praise for controlling costs and optimizing patient outcomes. Learn how to make bundled payments work for your physical therapy practice and your patients.
Making Bundled Payments Work for Your Practice and Your Patients
Bundled payments are designed to reimburse practitioners based on a set fee that covers all of the care that is associated with a medical-based episode or procedure. Patients are provided complete details associated with the costs of the episode or procedure and are informed of the fees associated with hospital stays, follow-up visits, and other necessary medical activities.
This is referred to as “price transparency”.
Furthermore, the bundled payments model ensure that practitioners perform optimally and patient outcomes are improved. The following outlines how you – the physical therapist – may make bundled payments more productive for your practice and the patients that you service:
- Create Bundled Payments Plans – Bundled payments are a strategic move that will allow you to create comprehensive plans that specifically outline all of the healthcare services and physical therapy sessions that your patients will require. This inclusive package should be highly detailed and offer the best prices possible.
- Create a Feedback System – As a physical therapist, you should ensure that your practice has a feedback system that connects to other medical providers that your patients receive care. Not only should the outcome goals be outlined, but the procedures and findings associated with the patient should be outlined. This will help optimize continuity of health care for each patient that works with your practice.
- Focus on Quality – Bundled payments are a type of initiative for value-based care for patients. As a result, the quality of care provided to patients should be measured and the final outcome of those patients should be measured. Pain levels, pain management, and reports from patients on the improvement of the issues that they have experienced should all be included in evaluating quality. When treating patients, it should be our goal to do so in such a way that they are relieved of the injury and/or medical condition that originally resulted in complications. By measuring outcomes, we will not only resolve patient problems, but, we will have a healthier society and receive incentives.
An Effective and Productive Cost Control Tool
While bundled payments have been around for a very long time, the program model only recently started getting an immense level of attention. This is especially true among the physical therapist community.
The economy is suffering and health care costs are rising at dangerous levels. Medical debt among patients and practitioners is drastically increasing at alarming rates. Bundled payments aid in offsetting costs off of the consumer and the medical professionals that care for them.
Our goal, as a physical therapist, is to ensure a successful outcome for our patients.
Now that bundled payments are in the mix, we will succeed in just that. For more information on bundled payments, Contact us to talk about it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471872/
http://ihpi.umich.edu/news/innovations-hospital-payment-models-pros-cons-bundled-payments
https://healthtrustpg.com/supply-chain-optimization/the-benefits-of-bundled-payments/
