Fact Based List:

National Commission on Physician Payment Reform: Twelve Recommendations for Reforming Physician Payment

Submitted by Anonymous on Wed, 03/06/2013 - 15:23


  1. Over time, payers should largely eliminate stand-alone fee-for-service payment to medical practices because of its inherent inefficiencies and problematic financial incentives
  2. Transition to approach based on quality & value should start with testing of new models of care over 5-year period, incorporating them into practices, with goal of broad adoption by the end of decade
  3. Because fee-for-service will remain an important mode of payment into the future, even as the nation shifts to fixed payment models, it will be necessary to continue recalibrating FFS payments
  4. Annual updates should be increased for evaluation and management codes, which are undervalued. Updates for procedural diagnosis codes, which are overvalued, should be frozen for a period of 3 years
  5. Higher payment for facility-based services that can be performed in a lower-cost setting should be eliminated
  6. Fee-for-service contracts should always include a component of quality or outcome-based performance reimbursement at a level sufficient to motivate substantial behavior change
  7. In practices having fewer than 5 providers, changes in fee-for-service reimbursement should encourage methods to form virtual relationships & thereby share resources to achieve higher quality care
  8. As the nation moves from a FFS system toward fixed payments, initial payment reforms should focus on areas where significant potential exists for cost savings & better quality
  9. Measures should be put into place to safeguard access to high quality care, assess the adequacy of risk-adjustment indicators, and promote strong physician commitment to patients
  10. The SGR adjustment should be eliminated
  11. Recovering revenues that would’ve been in the SGR shouldn’t just be reduced physician payment but Medicare as a whole. They should also look for savings from reductions in inappropriate utilization
  12. The Relative value scale Update Committee (RUC) should continue to make changes to become more representative of the medical profession as a whole and to make its decision making more transparent


Source: National Commission on Physician Payment Reform
Source URL: http://physicianpaymentcommission.org/wp-content/uploads/201...



List Ratings:   
0
No votes yet
Your rating: None

Lists You Might Also Be Interested In



Login or register to post comments