President-elect Trump’s choice to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Georgia Congressman Tom Price, M.D., doesn’t like Medicare experiments in which  physicians, hospitals and patients must participate.

That suggests that four mandatory bundled-payment models just approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are probably on a collision course with the incoming Trump administration.

If confirmed as HHS secretary,  Dr. Price, who has made no secret that he will be a strong advocate for the economic and other interests of his fellow physicians, may be able to erase or rewrite the final regulations for mandatory bundled payments, said Jack Lewin, M.D., president and chief executive  of the Cardiovascular Research Foundation, told Medscape. “And he’ll have the support of a majority of Congress.”

Still, Dr. Lewin said, Dr. Price may very well preserve the bundled-payment models, but make them voluntary. Whether they’ll work if only voluntary is uncertain.

“There will be physician organizations that are going to think maybe this is the way to go. We have {nonmandatory} bundled payments for cataract procedures. We have them for labor and delivery.”

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