Dr Andrei Gonzales on the Possibilities of Bundled Payments

Bundled payment models could provide surgeons with a full spectrum of data that can help them decide which hospital is the right choice for their patients, said Andrei Gonzales, MD, McKesson's director of value-based reimbursement initiatives. He also said that this data can drive improvement for hospitals that may be falling behind.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What do you believe is crucial for physicians to understand about bundled payment models?

I think the main thing that’s important for them to understand is really to see what’s happening across a continuum of care. So for instance in a knee replacement or a hip replacement, one of the things going back to the Horizon example, they’ve found that surgeons, when they’re accountable for an episode of care and they see, okay, here are the costs at Hospital A versus Hospital B, here are the readmission rates at Hospital A versus Hospital B, the overall outcomes at Hospital A versus Hospital B, it really helps the surgeon then understand where they should be doing more of their cases.

Because the surgeon doesn’t necessarily see the full spectrum of data without a program like an episode of care, to kind of really bring that together and shine a light on it. They get more anecdotal data, which is difficult as we all know for us to really make solid decisions on. So if they see that Hospital A costs less, and their readmission rate is actually a little lower than Hospital B, then that’s a very easy choice for them to make, to send their patients to Hospital A.

They can also have the conversation with the other hospital to say, look, here are the data and this is how you compare. That other hospital can then take steps to address some of those challenges and hopefully, it kind of floats all the boats in a region and really drives that improvement.