Revisiting key components of the Affordable Care Act

The change to value-based payment is sure to come under the health reform law, cleared by a second term of the Obama administration and the U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer, according to Jonathan Burroughs, physician executive and CEO of The Burroughs Healthcare Consulting Network in Hospital Impact this week. With a focus on quality and cost-curbing goals, the nation will see new innovative models, including accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes and bundled-payment programs.

But at the same time, hospitals will be subject to payment cuts. Specifically, Medicare will cut disproportionate share hospital payments by $22.1 billion over 10 years beginning in 2014 and also will increase penalties at 2 percent of annual payment updates for hospitals that fail to report quality data. Medicare and Medicaid will cut 2 percent of reimbursements for failing to meet core/patient safety measures and Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems survey scores by 2016, increase penalties for preventable readmissions to 3 percent by 2016 and increase the penalties for not satisfying Meaningful Use criteria to 5 percent by 2018. --Read the full blog post on Hospital Impact