News: CMS needs to improve how it measures quality of bundled payments, Johns Hopkins researchers say

CMS’ quality measures for bundled payments fail to adequately measure the quality of healthcare, researchers at Johns Hopkins wrote in a recent editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers said health providers should follow a more comprehensive framework for evaluating the quality of care delivered using the bundled payment model, FierceHealthcare reported.

Specifically, the evaluation required by CMS should address if the patient received the appropriate treatment, if the patient recovered or saw an improvement, and the cost of the treatment, the researchers wrote.

The editorial also says that CMS should consider a more comprehensive way to evaluate costs by adding a patient’s out-of-pocket spending and time out of work to Medicare’s costs, according to FierceHealthcare.

According to the editorial, adjusting the measurements would better measure the value per dollar. However, the researchers did admit that improving the measurements will necessitate additional investments from CMS to collect data and research the effectiveness of new measures, FierceHealthcare reported.

“[We] think that the investments necessary to develop and implement these ‘measures that matter’ will be worthwhile because they will drive high-value innovations in diagnosis and therapy,” the researchers wrote.

Editor’s note: To read FierceHealthcare’s coverage of this story, click here. To read the editorial from the Annals of Internal Medicine, click here. To read about CMS’ plans for a new bundled payment model, click here. To read about the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s recommendations to end the Merit-based Incentive System, click here.