Hospitals’ Skepticism of New Obamacare Medicare Payment Scheme Grows
Kathryn Nix /
A frequent accusation against conservative Medicare reform proposals is that they would “end Medicare as we know it.” But the reality is that Obamacare has already accomplished this. One example is a new program that will, for the first time, attempt to pay for quality by penalizing hospitals that fail to meet bureaucratically created standards for quality and efficiency.
Achieving better value in Medicare should be a goal of any serious reform plan, but the new law’s solution is unlikely to succeed. Instead, it will negatively impact patients and the hospitals that serve them.
Obamacare sets up “value-based purchasing” for hospital payments under Medicare. Starting in October 2012, hospitals and other providers will see payments redistributed based on performance scores calculated according to the methodology chosen by the Obama Administration. Payments will be reduced across the board to a new, lower “base” payment, after which hospitals could receive “bonuses” for performing well on the quality measures.