Holy Name Press Releases

Holy Name Medical Center Awarded For Providing High Quality, Efficient Patient Care

Among the top third of hospitals in the US according to CMS report

November 17, 2015

Holy Name Medical Center is among the highest performing hospitals in the US for treating Medicare patients with high quality, efficient care, earning incentive bonus payments – the exact amount to be announced in December – from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The payments are part of the federal 2016 Hospital Value Based Purchasing (VBP) Program, which is distributing $1.5 billion in incentive payments to qualifying hospitals. Fewer than one-third of all hospitals will be receiving bonus payments.

The VBP program rewards acute-care hospitals with incentive payments for providing high quality care to Medicare patients, including how closely they follow best clinical practices and how well they enhance the patient experience during hospital stays. The program's calculation is 50% clinical outcomes and processes, and 50% efficiency and patient experience. Established under the Affordable Care Act, the VBP program encourages hospitals to provide the best care by adjusting reimbursement payments based on the quality of that care.

"We understand that what matters most to patients is safe, high-quality care," said Michael Maron, President and CEO, Holy Name Medical Center. "That's why we are committed to ensuring that the right care is administered at the right time for every single patient. This requires constant vigilance, open dialogue and a culture of improvement in our medical center, along with an empowered and engaged staff and transparency of results."

Funded by a 1.75 percent reduction - up from 1.5 percent last year - from participating hospitals' group payments, the VBP redistributes the payments based on the hospitals' Total Performance Scores. The actual amount each hospital earns depends on the range and distribution of all eligible/participating hospitals scores. It is possible for a hospital to earn back an incentive payment that is less than, equal to, or more than the reduction for that year. The best performing hospitals' incentive payments will be paid for from the reductions of poor performing institutions. Holy Name is in this best-performing category, recouping all of the 1.75% and receiving incentive bonus payments.

According to the CMS website, the Hospital VBP Program is part CMS' long-standing effort to structure Medicare payments in a way that improves healthcare quality. This is the fourth year of value-based purchasing for the largest share of Medicare spending, affecting payment for inpatient stays in over 3,000 hospitals across the country. CMS states that it now pays hospitals for inpatient acute care services based on the quality of care, not just the quantity of services provided. CMS has been increasing the program's number of quality domains and measures used to evaluate performance, with the goal of "a broader, richer set of measures over time and aligning with the National Quality Strategy (NQS)."