90% Quality Tie-in

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This just in from our friends at the AAFP:

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the 2016 iteration of an annual report that outlines its quality strategy for the U.S. health care delivery system for the coming year. The agency’s 2016 strategy aims to achieve better overall health care by making that care more person-centered, reliable, accessible, and safe; keep people and communities healthier by supporting proven interventions that address behavioral, social, and environmental determinants of health; and spur smarter spending of health care dollars that ultimately will reduce the cost of health care for everyone. In January 2015, the administration set a pair of overarching goals for moving toward value-based payment within the Medicare fee-for-service system, and invited private sector payers to match or exceed those goals. The first goal is to tie 30% of Medicare payments to quality or value through alternative payment models by the end of 2016, and 50% by the end of 2018. The second goal calls for 85% of all Medicare fee-for-service payments to be tied to quality or value by the end of 2016, and 90% by the end of 2018.

Yes, you read that right.

  1. The first goal is to tie 30% of Medicare payments to quality or value through alternative payment models by the end of 2016, and 50% by the end of 2018.
  2. The second goal calls for 85% of all Medicare fee-for-service payments to be tied to quality or value by the end of 2016, and 90% by the end of 2018.

Quality and value. Two of the most unproven and ambiguous terms ever created are going to 90% in charge of how a physician is paid.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid.  And I am sure the idiots at the AAFP are patting themselves on the back over it.