Procedures will always be coded using a terminology system like CPT4 / HCPCS / SNOMED CT regardless of the payment model. The issue isn't coding but rather who bears the risk.
Bundled payments give providers the freedom and financial incentive to find innovative ways to efficiently deliver high quality care. No one benefits when hospitals have a separate line item charge every time a nurse administers a pain killer over the course of a hospital stay.
> Bundled payments give providers the freedom and financial incentive to find innovative ways to efficiently deliver high quality care
Until someone financially incentivizes a higher quality of care I don't expect to receive it, especially by a bundled pricing model.
> No one benefits when hospitals have a separate line item charge every time a nurse administers a pain killer over the course of a hospital stay.
And as someone who's been billed insane amounts for things like OTC painkillers I disagree with this so hard. I have zero, and I mean zero, confidence that they will not continue to overcharge me. When everything is individually coded then at least a patient can go back and "look at the receipt"...
In my adult life I realize that almost everything is weaponized against me (the patient) in healthcare. I cannot expect in good faith that removing the line items from the receipt will help me in any way. In America, I can only expect this to hurt me or I'd be an idiot.
Sorry to disagree, but there is no way that bundled pricing is going to serve the patient better as it makes auditing services rendered much much harder. As someone who's had to get into the weeds on this stuff between insurer, hospital billing, etc. I can only imagine that bundled pricing would have made my life more difficult as it really did come down to the codes.....
Bundled payments still help stablize the cost for an outcome. The bundled payment should make it easier to purchase a “knee replacement” as a consumer because you won’t need the clinical knowledge to understand the professional details of how. It has downsides as you mentioned above, but it can make consumer choice easier. Complexity is one of the fundamental challenges of paying for healthcare today.
Bundled payments give providers the freedom and financial incentive to find innovative ways to efficiently deliver high quality care. No one benefits when hospitals have a separate line item charge every time a nurse administers a pain killer over the course of a hospital stay.