op.
"The surgeon is the most important thing," says Dr. Kusuma. "A bad
technician who chooses bad patients is going to have bad outcomes.
You can have the most beautiful care pathway of all time, but if the
surgeon doesn't have a good technique, it isn't going to be successful."
The future
With healthcare costs continuing to rise, and facilities and insurers'
budgets being squeezed, bundled payments aren't going away any
time soon. "As health insurance companies face competitive pres-
sures, they're trying different ways to bend the trend of cost growth,"
says Dr. Navathe.
If you're already performing outpatient total joints, Dr. Navathe sug-
gests starting to invest in the resources to do it safely and developing
relationships with those post-op providers that will help lay the
groundwork for creating a bundled care program in the future.
"There are very natural steps that can be done now that would lay
the foundation and would also be unequivocally good things to do
for patients," he says.
Dr. Kusuma says that though it's still new for outpatient surgery cen-
ters, the potential is there for major success with bundled payments.
"If administrators of outpatient centers can collaborate well with
top quality expert surgeons, they can create compelling bundled con-
tracts with commercial insurers and be very profitable," he says. "If
you can coordinate the symphony and provide a consistent and quali-
ty product to patients, it is a great move for outpatient facilities."
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