New Payment Models

As payment policies continue to evolve, essential hospitals are being called upon more frequently to provide value-based, patient-centered, and coordinated health care services.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services exceeded its goal of tying 30 percent of Medicare payments to alternate payment models — accountable care organizations and bundled payments, for example — by 2016. Like all hospitals, essential hospitals must adapt to an environment in which current payment systems are increasingly realigned to better reward improvements to the efficiency of care delivery and quality outcomes.

Nurses at association member NuHealth, in East Meadow, N.Y., put patients at the center of care — figuratively and literally.

America’s Essential Hospitals recognizes that improving care coordination and quality while maintaining a mission to serve the most vulnerable is a delicate balance for our members. Essential hospitals also face resource challenges as they consider investments necessary for participation, whether voluntary or mandatory, in alternative payment models.

The association closely monitors and evaluates new and existing payment and delivery models to ensure they do not put our hospitals at a disadvantage or impede essential hospitals’ progress in care coordination.