Bundled payments might not yield big savings

Bundling payments to providers for certain episodes of care may not yield savings and efficiencies as easily as once thought, according to a new study of the Prometheus payment project by the RAND Corp. and researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, reports FierceHealthFinance. Although the participating health systems--Crozer Keystone Health System-Independence Blue Cross in Pennsylvania, Employers Coalition on Health in Illinois, and Priority Health/Spectrum Health in Michigan--lagged months or years in implementing any bundled payments, researchers suggested that the efforts have helped better coordinate care. They also found that technology improvements could make future bundling efforts progress more smoothly. --Read the full post at FierceHealthFinance