Results of Care Redesign for Joint Arthroplasty in the BPCI Program in an Independent Physician-Owned Orthopedic Group

Background: The Bundled Payment for Care Improvement initiative is a program designed by Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in an attempt to increase the value of care delivered to Medicare recipients by rewarding providers who can deliver more cost-efficient, high-value care. This article reports the results of a coordinated care redesign program in an independent, medium-sized private-practice orthopedic group.

Methods: A committee of stakeholders worked to redesign care protocols for patients receiving upper and lower joint replacement procedures. These protocols included preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative care. Baseline metrics for post-acute care and readmissions were compared to the same metrics after initiating care redesign.

Results: Incidence of discharge to inpatient facilities decreased as did length of stay at these facilities. Home health utilization and readmission rates were lowered. Average cost of the 90-day episodes decreased to a statistically significant degree.

Conclusions: These initial results indicate that coordinated care redesign in the private practice setting can yield higher value care with decreased utilization of high-cost care, particularly in the post-acute period.