If saving up to 50% on single-use medical devices (SUDs) isn’t enough to whet a clinician’s appetite, the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) has added an extra financial incentive for those hospitals who choose to participate in the newly-created Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program. Starting in October 2012, hospitals enrolled in VBP, a brainchild of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), will be receiving financial incentives for their efforts to improve the quality of patient care without spuriously increasing the volume of procedures. CMS will evaluate hospitals on a series of scoring measures that quantify “Clinical Process of Care” and “Patient Experience of Care” in order to determine overall eligibility for financial rewards.
After an initial analysis of the program, AMDR has identified two quality measures under the “Clinical Process of Care” domain that a hospital can meet through the use of reprocessed SUDs. For those VBP-enrolled hospitals that order and (within 24 hours) utilize a reprocessed blood compression sleeve for purposes of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis, one or two achievement points can be earned that will count towards their final score. Therefore, hospitals will not only be saving supply-chain resources on reprocessed devices, but meeting necessary quality measures that could translate into an additional financial bonus at the end of the year.
For more information on the VBP program, check out the CMS Fact Sheet or visit their website.
To learn more about how your hospital supply chain can benefit from reprocessed SUDs, be sure to visit AMDR on the web, Twitter, and Facebook.