News: AHA urges CMS to expand state data options for new BPCI Advanced program

At the beginning of the 2018, CMS announced the coming launch of a new voluntary bundled payment model—the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced)—and set the performance period to begin on October 1, 2018.

This week, however, the American Hospital Association (AHA) requested CMS add two start dates for the program (January 1 and April 1, 2019), AHA News reported. First and foremost, the additional start dates, according to the AHA, would give CMS a larger pool of pilot participants.

The second benefit would be for the participants themselves. “By making these start dates optional, CMS can still allow applicants who feel ready to begin by the original program start date of Oct. 1, 2018 to do so,” the AHA wrote.

The AHA contends that applicants need “both a complete suite of data from CMS (including episode target prices, and summary and raw claims data) and sufficient time to analyze that data.” With CMS’ initial plans to provide the requisite data to hospitals by the end of May 2018, it leaves little time to make an informed decision, the AHA says.

CMS has yet to respond to the AHA’s concerns and the start date remains October 1, 2018.

Editor’s note: To read the AHA News story on this topic, click here. To read the complete letter from the AHA, click here. To read more about the BPCI Advanced model, click here.