Walter Eisner • Tue, March 21st, 2017
Our orthopedic surgeon and Health and Human Services Secretary, Tom Price, M.D., has said he is no fan of bundled payments.
After just taking office in February, he’s already putting on the brakes to the payment model with the March 20, 2017 announcement that the expansion of hip and knee replacement bundled payment programs (Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement – CJR) from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Innovation Center will be delayed.
Last fall, then Congressman Price, said in a letter to the Obama administration that CMS had overstepped its authority, upsetting the balance between the executive and legislative branches and failing to engage stakeholders when creating the programs. He also wrote, “these mandatory models overhaul major payment systems, commandeer clinical decisionmaking and dramatically alter the delivery of care.” 
According to a March 20 notice in the Federal Register, the CJR program was scheduled to expand on the 20th, but those expansions will now be delayed until May 20, 2017 to “allow time for additional review, to ensure that the agency has adequate time to undertake notice and comment [on] rulemaking to modify the policy if policy modifications are warranted,” and to make sure its participants understand the rules and how to comply with them.