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The Coming Challenges—and Opportunities—of Value-Based Purchasing
The Coming Challenges—and Opportunities—of Value-Based Purchasing
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March, furthering the federal government’s commitment to increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system by decreasing cost and improving quality. An expansion of the “value-based purchasing” model, this law mandates that ratings and reimbursements to physicians and hospitals be increasingly tied to measured quality of care.
In this system, a physician’s quality profile will be determined by a variety of factors, including reported quality data, severity-adjusted clinical outcome measures, patient-safety indicators, and hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). Since all of these are, to a large extent, documentation issues, physicians are now forced to pay close attention to how they identify and describe diagnoses and procedures.
Medicare will, in effect, attempt to determine: “Did the clinical team correctly identify and appropriately treat all relevant patient conditions—without causing any adverse conditions—and do so safely, efficiently, and with good outcomes?”
The patient chart must “tell the story” of the episode of care in the hospital. It must accurately describe all of the patient’s conditions and demonstrate the complexity of medical decision-making and establishment of risk. Upon discharge, this risk must “match up” with the diagnoses that are being coded and the Medicare Severity Diagnostic Related Group (MS-DRGs) being assigned. Often, the information is present in the chart but is inconsistent from provider to provider, or documented in a way that is misunderstood by hospital coders.
If successful in improving our documentation skills, the reward will be a higher rating and increased reimbursement.
Medicare also is ramping up its claims denial and recovery business to help “clean up” the system. This includes the national rollout of the Recovery Audit Contactor (RAC) initiative (see “Attention to Detail,” April 2010, p. 1), as well as the new Medicare administrative contractors (MACs). Both rely on accurate documentation. The RACs will penalize hospitals and physicians financially for documentation lacking in specificity and accuracy; the MACs will deny payment for claims erroneously submitted (technical errors) or lacking documentation of medical necessity.
What makes many physicians even more uncomfortable in this new environment is that Medicare is striving to better align the priorities and financial incentives of hospitals and physicians. Alliances between the two are strongly encouraged through such programs as the Acute Care Episode (ACE) Demonstration Project (the precursor to hospital-physician bundled payments), and the establishment of accountable care organizations (ACOs).
This emerging environment presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities to HM groups. Hospitalists are historically more aligned with hospital administrations, as compared with most other specialties. Hospitalists also are asked to participate in the care of an increasingly large percentage of patients across all specialties. This could well be an opportunity to be rewarded for embracing both of these trends.
Hospitalists are uniquely positioned to function as the documentation improvement clinical team leaders, working closely with other physicians across all specialties and the administration to fulfill all documentation requirements—and to be rewarded for doing so. Though hospitalists should have a general understanding of the language and rules of documentation, a system must be in place that helps them identify and capture all the pertinent aspects of the medical record without the need to become coders themselves. To this end, a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) program is critical.
But it might not be enough.
What is needed is a clinical integration program, an enhancement of traditional CDI. This approach requires participation from ED physicians, along with clinical integration specialists, to document accurately and completely from the start. The clinical integration specialist ensures that medical necessity for inpatient admission and patient risk is being addressed and established, conditions are appropriately identified as being present on admission (POA), and all diagnoses are properly recognized and documented thoroughly and accurately. Clinical integration through collaborative documentation then continues throughout the hospitalization, with diagnostic authority and oversight from the hospitalist, all the way through discharge.
Hospitalists should welcome and champion this type of program. As documentation becomes the key to survival, a complete medical record will stand up to any and all scrutiny by Medicare or others.
As for the negatives, there are none.
Andrew H. Dombro, MD, national medical director, and Paul Weygandt, MD, JD, vice president of physician services, J.A. Thomas & Associates, Atlanta
The Coming Challenges—and Opportunities—of Value-Based Purchasing
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March, furthering the federal government’s commitment to increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system by decreasing cost and improving quality. An expansion of the “value-based purchasing” model, this law mandates that ratings and reimbursements to physicians and hospitals be increasingly tied to measured quality of care.
In this system, a physician’s quality profile will be determined by a variety of factors, including reported quality data, severity-adjusted clinical outcome measures, patient-safety indicators, and hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). Since all of these are, to a large extent, documentation issues, physicians are now forced to pay close attention to how they identify and describe diagnoses and procedures.
Medicare will, in effect, attempt to determine: “Did the clinical team correctly identify and appropriately treat all relevant patient conditions—without causing any adverse conditions—and do so safely, efficiently, and with good outcomes?”
The patient chart must “tell the story” of the episode of care in the hospital. It must accurately describe all of the patient’s conditions and demonstrate the complexity of medical decision-making and establishment of risk. Upon discharge, this risk must “match up” with the diagnoses that are being coded and the Medicare Severity Diagnostic Related Group (MS-DRGs) being assigned. Often, the information is present in the chart but is inconsistent from provider to provider, or documented in a way that is misunderstood by hospital coders.
If successful in improving our documentation skills, the reward will be a higher rating and increased reimbursement.
Medicare also is ramping up its claims denial and recovery business to help “clean up” the system. This includes the national rollout of the Recovery Audit Contactor (RAC) initiative (see “Attention to Detail,” April 2010, p. 1), as well as the new Medicare administrative contractors (MACs). Both rely on accurate documentation. The RACs will penalize hospitals and physicians financially for documentation lacking in specificity and accuracy; the MACs will deny payment for claims erroneously submitted (technical errors) or lacking documentation of medical necessity.
What makes many physicians even more uncomfortable in this new environment is that Medicare is striving to better align the priorities and financial incentives of hospitals and physicians. Alliances between the two are strongly encouraged through such programs as the Acute Care Episode (ACE) Demonstration Project (the precursor to hospital-physician bundled payments), and the establishment of accountable care organizations (ACOs).
This emerging environment presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities to HM groups. Hospitalists are historically more aligned with hospital administrations, as compared with most other specialties. Hospitalists also are asked to participate in the care of an increasingly large percentage of patients across all specialties. This could well be an opportunity to be rewarded for embracing both of these trends.
Hospitalists are uniquely positioned to function as the documentation improvement clinical team leaders, working closely with other physicians across all specialties and the administration to fulfill all documentation requirements—and to be rewarded for doing so. Though hospitalists should have a general understanding of the language and rules of documentation, a system must be in place that helps them identify and capture all the pertinent aspects of the medical record without the need to become coders themselves. To this end, a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) program is critical.
But it might not be enough.
What is needed is a clinical integration program, an enhancement of traditional CDI. This approach requires participation from ED physicians, along with clinical integration specialists, to document accurately and completely from the start. The clinical integration specialist ensures that medical necessity for inpatient admission and patient risk is being addressed and established, conditions are appropriately identified as being present on admission (POA), and all diagnoses are properly recognized and documented thoroughly and accurately. Clinical integration through collaborative documentation then continues throughout the hospitalization, with diagnostic authority and oversight from the hospitalist, all the way through discharge.
Hospitalists should welcome and champion this type of program. As documentation becomes the key to survival, a complete medical record will stand up to any and all scrutiny by Medicare or others.
As for the negatives, there are none.
Andrew H. Dombro, MD, national medical director, and Paul Weygandt, MD, JD, vice president of physician services, J.A. Thomas & Associates, Atlanta
The Coming Challenges—and Opportunities—of Value-Based Purchasing
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was signed into law in March, furthering the federal government’s commitment to increasing the efficiency of the U.S. healthcare system by decreasing cost and improving quality. An expansion of the “value-based purchasing” model, this law mandates that ratings and reimbursements to physicians and hospitals be increasingly tied to measured quality of care.
In this system, a physician’s quality profile will be determined by a variety of factors, including reported quality data, severity-adjusted clinical outcome measures, patient-safety indicators, and hospital-acquired conditions (HACs). Since all of these are, to a large extent, documentation issues, physicians are now forced to pay close attention to how they identify and describe diagnoses and procedures.
Medicare will, in effect, attempt to determine: “Did the clinical team correctly identify and appropriately treat all relevant patient conditions—without causing any adverse conditions—and do so safely, efficiently, and with good outcomes?”
The patient chart must “tell the story” of the episode of care in the hospital. It must accurately describe all of the patient’s conditions and demonstrate the complexity of medical decision-making and establishment of risk. Upon discharge, this risk must “match up” with the diagnoses that are being coded and the Medicare Severity Diagnostic Related Group (MS-DRGs) being assigned. Often, the information is present in the chart but is inconsistent from provider to provider, or documented in a way that is misunderstood by hospital coders.
If successful in improving our documentation skills, the reward will be a higher rating and increased reimbursement.
Medicare also is ramping up its claims denial and recovery business to help “clean up” the system. This includes the national rollout of the Recovery Audit Contactor (RAC) initiative (see “Attention to Detail,” April 2010, p. 1), as well as the new Medicare administrative contractors (MACs). Both rely on accurate documentation. The RACs will penalize hospitals and physicians financially for documentation lacking in specificity and accuracy; the MACs will deny payment for claims erroneously submitted (technical errors) or lacking documentation of medical necessity.
What makes many physicians even more uncomfortable in this new environment is that Medicare is striving to better align the priorities and financial incentives of hospitals and physicians. Alliances between the two are strongly encouraged through such programs as the Acute Care Episode (ACE) Demonstration Project (the precursor to hospital-physician bundled payments), and the establishment of accountable care organizations (ACOs).
This emerging environment presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities to HM groups. Hospitalists are historically more aligned with hospital administrations, as compared with most other specialties. Hospitalists also are asked to participate in the care of an increasingly large percentage of patients across all specialties. This could well be an opportunity to be rewarded for embracing both of these trends.
Hospitalists are uniquely positioned to function as the documentation improvement clinical team leaders, working closely with other physicians across all specialties and the administration to fulfill all documentation requirements—and to be rewarded for doing so. Though hospitalists should have a general understanding of the language and rules of documentation, a system must be in place that helps them identify and capture all the pertinent aspects of the medical record without the need to become coders themselves. To this end, a clinical documentation improvement (CDI) program is critical.
But it might not be enough.
What is needed is a clinical integration program, an enhancement of traditional CDI. This approach requires participation from ED physicians, along with clinical integration specialists, to document accurately and completely from the start. The clinical integration specialist ensures that medical necessity for inpatient admission and patient risk is being addressed and established, conditions are appropriately identified as being present on admission (POA), and all diagnoses are properly recognized and documented thoroughly and accurately. Clinical integration through collaborative documentation then continues throughout the hospitalization, with diagnostic authority and oversight from the hospitalist, all the way through discharge.
Hospitalists should welcome and champion this type of program. As documentation becomes the key to survival, a complete medical record will stand up to any and all scrutiny by Medicare or others.
As for the negatives, there are none.
Andrew H. Dombro, MD, national medical director, and Paul Weygandt, MD, JD, vice president of physician services, J.A. Thomas & Associates, Atlanta