CMS Delays Bundled Payment Programs

In a notice posted to the Federal Registrar, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced it will delay the start date from March 21 to May 20, 2017 for its bundled payment pilot program, the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement. Additionally, CMS will postpone, for the second time, the implementation of its bundled payment initiatives for cardiac care from July 1 to October 1, 2017.

The official notice states that “this additional 3-month delay is necessary to allow time for additional review, to ensure that the agency has adequate time to undertake notice and comment rulemaking to modify the policy if modifications are warranted, and to ensure that in such a case participants have a clear understanding of the governing rules and are not required to take needless compliance steps.”
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Although CMS originally envisioned the bundled-payment programs would help clinicians accrue incentives under the Alternative Payment Model, delays may have implications for providers who were hoping to use the bundled payment models during their MACRA verification.

CMS stated that it is seeking public comment to possibly delay the start of the cardiac bundles until January 1, 2018, which would also delay the start of its pilot program to the same date.

In light of the federal regulation freeze put in place by President Donald Trump, CMS Administrator Seema Verma, MPH, and HHS Secretary Tom Price, MD, believe that the delay is necessary in order to provide stakeholders with enough time to adequately participate in the review process.

—Julie Gould (Mazurkiewicz)