For bundled payments for Medicare-financed knee and hip replacements , hospitals will need to recruit high-quality post-acute partners, and that may be difficult in some markets, reports Modern Healthcare.
The publication noted that “Medicare will give hundreds of hospitals more flexibility in letting patients recover from such procedures in brief nursing home stays, which are significantly less expensive than hospital care. But only nursing homes that rank average or better on national quality scores will qualify for a waiver. That will exclude 1 out of 3 nursing homes in the 67 chosen areas from getting referrals for services covered in the payment bundles, according to an analysis of the markets, and the latest scores on Medicare’s five-star quality ratings. In some areas, as many as 80 percent of nursing homes will be disqualified. ”

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