Cardiac Care Bundled Pay Models Preserve New Tech Add-Ons, But Still Make Medtech Nervous

The US Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized three new bundled payment models for cardiac care and one for hip surgeries that will prompt hospitals to adopt them by providing clinicians up to 5% more for Medicare reimbursements. The cardiac and joint care models look similar to last year's "Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement" plan, in that they still permit inpatient new technology add-on payments and outpatient transitional pass-through payments for device use by excluding those costs from episode payment model calculations.