"That's great from a therapy perspective, because some copays for ther-
apy are so high, it demotivates the patient," explains Mr. Uba. "Once
you remove that financial barrier, people come to therapy and finish
their therapy, which is critical for creating positive outcomes."
Bundling can also help differentiate your center from local competi-
tion by moving beyond metrics like readmission rate or infection rate.
Data your payer provides can show patients how well you perform
during episodes of care. "It becomes a whole new metric," explains
Dr. Gonzales. "You're able to show the overall outcome instead of
process measures that are very difficult to tie to a real outcome.
Patients have a full view of what's happening across the continuum of
care, instead of just information from your own facility."
Payer-provided data also provides insight into your bundle partners.
For example, you may think procedures and discharges are going
well, but the data tells you physical therapy isn't doing a good job in
helping patients achieve excellent outcomes. "Now you'll need to
work with them and let them know if they still want your patients,
things need to improve," says Dr. Gonzales.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 9 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y. N E T • 4 9
know what our allowance is in
the bundle for implants, so ven-
dors can either play at that level
or not," he says. "It helps us in
those negotiations to say, 'Meet
our price or we're going with a
different vendor.' Every dollar
you save on that implant, you
can allocate to something else."
— Joe Paone
• LINE ITEM Bundled payments help control the costs of
implants, one of the biggest expenses of joint replacement
surgery.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN,
CNOR
