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January 13, 2012
CPDP weighs in on Medicare Advantage Quality Bonus Payment
In 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) starts its three-year Medicare Advantage Quality Bonus Payment (QBP) demonstration to financially reward Medicare Advantage (MA) plans that provide high-quality care. The demonstration will also make information on the quality of MA plans available on the Medicare Plan Finder website, with quality indicated via a star rating system. Recently, CMS sought input on QBP's methodology and measures. In a move that supports greater transparency, the agency proposed adding quality measures that extend beyond health plans to hospitals and other settings. In a letter, CPDP encouraged CMS to leverage QBP to fulfill Congress's intent for MA plans: to operate more efficiently than traditional Medicare fee-for-service plans, without sacrificing quality. CPDP stated that new measures for the star rating system should be meaningful for consumer-decision making and drive plans to pursue high-value care, including those focusing on mortality, readmissions, and patient safety.

October 31, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Comment on Proposed Rules for New Health Insurance Exchanges
In July, HHS released a proposed rule beginning the process of developing guidance to the states as they develop the Affordable Care Act-mandated Health Insurance Exchanges for individuals and small businesses. In response to the proposed rule, 23 consumer and employer organizations submitted a comment letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The comments reflect their support for HHS to require states to incorporate strong quality, cost and value information in their consumer assistance tools, including the web portals and cost calculators. The letter also discusses the need for strong consumer and purchaser representation on the Exchange governance boards, and the need for meaningful conflict of interest rules to ensure that those who govern the Exchanges do so with consumers' and employers' needs in mind. Finally, the comments discuss the need for Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges, which will provide new choices for employees of small businesses beginning in 2014, to include the same level of quality and cost information for consumers. In addition to the comment letter, the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project held an informational webinar on the topic of Exchanges, based on the comments being submitted. For just the slides from this webinar, click here.

August 30, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Commend Proposed New Rules Affecting Quality of Care Delivered in the Medicare Outpatient and Ambulatory Surgical Center Settings, and the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program
In a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), 28 consumer, labor, and employer organizations voiced their strong support for proposed regulations to outpatient and ambulatory surgery center quality reporting programs. The organizations expressed support for measures on patient safety, outcomes, and diabetes care. For the new Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, organizations strongly supported CMS' proposal to make outcome measures count for 30 percent of hospitals' total scores and reducing the weight given to clinical process measures. The proposed rule can be found here.

August 30, 2011
Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project advocates for CMS to set
higher standards for how physicians are rewarded and evaluated
In a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), 29 consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations urged the agency to strengthen the proposed Physician Fee Schedule by being bolder in paying physicians for value and assessing performance. They recognized the agency's recent strides in both areas and call for changes that will have a significant and lasting impact on bending the cost curve and improving quality.

August 8, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Commend Release of Medicare Data for Performance Reports and Call for Broad Availability
Thirty-eight consumer and purchaser organizations voiced their strong support for CMS releasing Medicare Data for performance reporting. The organizations called for permitting the broadest possible use allowed under the law to achieve the greatest public benefit, while protecting patient privacy and data security and also recommended making the data more affordable, especially for non-profit organizations. On September 20, 2011 the Wall Street Journal published an opinion piece from PBGH Medical Director Arnold Milstein and CPDP member Robert Krughoff, along with George Shultz echoing CPDP's August comment.

June 20, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Commend Proposed Changes to the Medicare Inpatient Hospital Reporting Program That Will Lead to Improvements in Patient Safety
On June 20, 2011, 30 consumer, labor, and employer organizations voiced their strong support for CMS' proposed changes to the Medicare Inpatient Quality Reporting Program (IQR), reflecting the agency's continued efforts to foster increased transparency and promote a market that recognizes and rewards quality rather than volume. The IQR, which is part of the broader Inpatient Prospective Payment System, is a predominant source of publicly reported quality information for consumers and purchasers, via the website Hospital Compare. The comments focus primarily on the importance of including the proposed hospital-acquired infection (HAI) measures related to surgical site infections, MRSA, c-diff, and ventilator-associated infections, as well as support for proposed clinical measures and the measure of spending per beneficiary. The proposed rule can be found here.

June 6, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Applaud Proposed Rules for Medicare Shared Savings Program and Provide Recommendations for Monitoring Anticompetitive Behavior
Transformational programs are critical to addressing the quality and affordability crisis that Americans experience with our health care system. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), if done "right," can be one of those programs. On June 6, 2011, the Consumer Purchaser Disclosure Project – with 25 signatories – applauds CMS' proposed rule on Medicare Shared Savings Program for ACOs and urges the agency to take further steps to ensure that ACOs provide health care that is patient-centered, high quality and affordable. The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project also urges CMS to include additional provisions to keep the health care marketplace competitive. Last week the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project sent a letter with 22 signatories to the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice in response to their proposed antitrust guidelines for ACOs.

April 12, 2011
Consumers and Purchasers Support HHS' Commitment to Improving Patient Safety
On April 12, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a new patient safety initiative titled the Partnership for Patients, which is designed to reduce preventable hospital readmissions and healthcare-acquired conditions in order to make health care safer, more coordinated, and less costly overall. The goals of the program are to 1)reduce preventable hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent; and 2) reduce all hospital readmissions by 20 percent. Achieving these goals would result in approximately 1.8 million fewer injuries to patients, more than 60,000 lives saved, and 1.6 million fewer re-hospitalizations over the next three years. The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project (CPDP) issued a strong statement of support for the Partnership for Patients, and applauds HHS' commitment to improving patient safety and addressing both the significant need to prevent harm, and to improve care transitions for patients moving across different settings of care. More information on the initiative can be found here.

March 21, 2011
The National Quality Strategy, Charting a Unified Course for Improving Health Care Quality
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) submitted the National Quality Strategy (NQS) to Congress on March 21, marking the creation of the first national plan for how to improve the quality of health care. The NQS importantly identifies better coordination and communication, patient-centered care, public reporting of provider performance, and cost containment as keys to improving the health care system. CDPD is pleased to see that the comments it submitted in October 2010 on the draft strategy are reflected in this first plan. We believe what was released is an important step towards a unified quality strategy, and we look forward to continued collaboration with the Administration in further refining the strategy and developing concrete goals. CPDP's statement on the NQS is available here.

March 8, 2011
Basing Medicare Hospital Payment on Performance
Twenty-eight consumers and purchasers voiced their strong support of CMS' proposal to begin tying Medicare hospital payments to how well hospitals care for their patients. They encouraged CMS to reward hospitals for high levels of performance, give greater weight to patient experience in determining payments, focus on measures that are meaningful to consumers and purchasers, and set an aggressive timetable for increasing the amount of payment that is based on performance.

March 3, 2011
Promoting Measurement of How Providers Care for Their Medicaid Patients
The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project provided feedback to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality on the set of measures that the agency proposes to recommend that states use to assess how well providers care for adults enrolled in Medicaid. Public accountability has been sorely lacking in Medicaid, particularly for adult beneficiaries under age 65, making this voluntary reporting program an important step forward. The Disclosure Project made recommendations on how the agency should focus on a parsimonious set of high-value measures to promote use and impact.

February 25, 2011
Moving Meaningful Use Forward to the Next Stage
In a letter to the Office of the National Coordinator, 27 consumer, purchaser, and labor organizations commended the HIT Policy Committee on the draft definition for Stage 2 of the Meaningful Use incentive program. The draft definition sets the bar high enough to achieve meaningful results, while at the same time be reasonably met by providers. The 27 organizations were supportive in particular of the focus on getting providers to demonstrate significant functional capabilities, increasing the number of patients that will be given access to their health information, and improving care coordination. They also provided specific suggestions and examples for how the draft definition can be bolstered to better support consumer and provider decision-making.

February 25, 2011
Comments to CMS on Transforming the Physician Quality Reporting System
Twenty-eight consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations advocated for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to make rapid and significant changes to the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS). PQRS is a program that pays clinicians for submitting data on quality measures. In the future some of the quality measures will be used in Physician Compare and potentially for performance-based payment. Unfortunately, in its current form, PQRS fails to serve the public interest. In a letter to CMS, the organizations called for the program to require clinicians to report on more and better measures, focus on whether care made a difference for the patient, make data available to the private sector, and ensure that beneficiary needs and interests are primary.

December 3, 2010
Weighing in on CMS' Implementation of ACOs
The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project submitted a comment letter in response to questions posed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The Disclosure Project advocated for ACOs to be evaluated on a core set quality and cost measures. We also recommended CMS work in partnership with the private sector to result in greater change.

November 30, 2010
Comments to CMS on Implementing the Physician Compare Website
Thirty-four consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to put consumers first in its development of the Affordable Care Act mandated Physician Compare website. In a letter to the agency, they conveyed the importance of reporting performance information at the level of the individual physician, providing meaningful comparisons of physicians, and fostering the growth of all-payer databases to support both Physician Compare and private sector reporting initiatives.

November 19, 2010
Setting Standards for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs)
The Disclosure Project commented on NCQA's proposed ACO Criteria for 2011. If done right, ACOs could increase quality and affordability of care. We encouraged NCQA to strengthen its standards around performance measurement and cost containment to help assure these aims are achieved.

October 15, 2010
Building a Comprehensive National Health Care Quality Strategy and Plan
In a comment letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, 27 consumer, labor, and employer organizations applauded the agency's proposed National Health Care Quality Strategy and Plan. At the same time, the signators also provided guidance on how the Strategy can be strengthened, by clarifying the framework around which the strategy is built, including specific targets for improvement (both aspirational and short-term), emphasizing the need for cost containment, and generally reflecting priorities and tactics that are central to high-value care. The Strategy will play an important role in guiding the public and private sectors in their efforts to improve health care quality across the nation. In accordance with the Affordable Care Act, HHS will finalize the Strategy and deliver it to Congress by January 2011.

October 4, 2010
Comments to HHS on Health Insurance Exchanges
In accordance with the Affordable Care Act, Americans will be able to purchase coverage through national and state health insurance Exchanges starting in 2014. In response to the Department of Health and Human Service's request for input on how Exchanges should be implemented, the Disclosure Project, in its comment letter, urged the federal government and states to require that Exchanges be "active purchasers." As active purchasers, Exchanges would not only expand coverage but serve as vehicles for transforming the delivery system and lowering health care costs.

September 27, 2010
Releasing Medicare Data for Performance Reporting
The availability of Medicare data for performance measurement is key to achieving a system that uses value to inform decisions about care and payment, both in the public and private sector. It is a public good that should be shared broadly with qualified entities, as long as protections of patient privacy and data security are in place, and there should be flexibility to promote innovative measurement activities. Read more in our comment letter to CMS on how we think this piece of the Affordable Care Act should be implemented.

August 31, 2010
Comments on CMS' proposed changes to the Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System
In a comment letter to CMS, 27 consumer, labor, and employer organizations supported the agency's plans to improve quality reporting in the hospital outpatient setting. Over the course of the next few years, CMS expects to expand the number of measures being reported by hospital outpatient facilities with a focus on many areas that are important to consumers and purchasers (e.g., overuse, efficiency, care coordination and transitions). The Disclosure Project also developed a backgrounder on the proposed changes.

August 24, 2010
Comments to CMS on Medicare Physician Payment for 2011
Twenty-four consumer, labor, and employer organizations urged CMS to take bolder strides in transforming physician payment. They underscored the need to rapidly develop robust foundations for value-based purchasing -- effective measurement, data collection, and reporting. They also emphasized the importance of reforming how physician services are valued so they reflect the perspectives of patients and society as a whole. Read comments.

July 2, 2010
Setting Standards for Medical Homes
The Disclosure Project commented on NCQA's proposed Patient-Centered Medical Home Standards for 2011, which serve as a standardized tool for assessing whether physician practices have the systems and processes in place needed to support a patient-centered medical home (PCMH). Our comments appreciate the significant progress NCQA has made in enhancing its standards, but also underscore the importance of improving them to make patient experience and meaning use "must pass" elements to receive recognition for having the capabilities of a PCMH.

July 2010
"Meaningful Use" Criteria Will Be Meaningful
Purchasers and consumers have a right to expect that the federal tax dollars used for health IT adoption will lead to significant improvements in health care quality and provider accountability. The inclusion of pharmacy, imaging and lab orders in electronic records can improve patient safety and reduce duplication by automatically by applying evidence-based rules and care alerts. Click here for more information on the final rules for the first stage of meaningful use. The Disclosure Project held a briefing on the how the final rules align with the perspectives of consumers and purchasers, and what the next steps for meaningful use will entail.

June 18
Expanding Hospital Quality Measurement and Public Reporting: Comments to CMS on Proposed Changes to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System Proposed Rule
In response to proposed changes to the IPPS Proposed Rule's pay-for-reporting program (often referred to as "Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update," or RHQDAPU) for 2012 - 2014, 30 consumer, labor union, and employer organizations affirmed their support for an expanded set of required quality measures. In addition to commenting on the measures being proposed, the comments addressed a range of important issues, including criteria for removing measures from the program, and the addition of measures that rely on registry data, which until now have not been included in RHQDAPU. Read Comments.

June 17, 2010
Creating a Framework for Improving Care for Individuals with Multiple Chronic Conditions
HHS released a draft Strategic Framework on Multiple Chronic Conditions to support a coordinated vision and plan of action on how to improve care for individuals with multiple chronic conditions. The Disclosure Project provided comments applauding HHS' efforts to create a framework to address the unique needs experienced by this population. The comments also expressed the need to strengthen the framework by maximizing the contributions of health information technology and performance measures.

June 4, 2010
Implementing Health Care Reform: Developing an Insurance Web Portal to Inform Coverage Decisions
The Affordable Care Act requires HHS to develop a "Web Portal" to assist individuals and small businesses identify affordable health insurance coverage in any state. The Disclosure Project submitted comments on HHS' interim final rule on the Web Portal, emphasizing the importance of designing this tool to help users factor in quality and value of care (of health plans and individual providers) into their decisions about what coverage best reflects their needs.

April 1, 2010
National Health Reform Has Now Become Law
With the enactment of the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, the stage is set for health insurance coverage for most Americans, bending the cost curve, and improving care delivery. This bill is historic and importantly for the efforts of the Disclosure Project contains a wide array of provisions that have the potential to dramatically improve the quality and cost effectiveness of care in America. Click here for a summary of delivery and payment reform elements that were included in the legislation.

March 1, 2010
Improving Quality Measurement in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services was required under Title IV of Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) to draw up a list of recommended measures for states to use, and report, on a voluntary basis, to the Department for their Medicaid and CHIP programs. These measures were publicized in a federal register notice, along with a request for comments on how to best implement the measurement program to achieve broad participation by the states, since it's not a required reporting program and there are no direct financial incentives tied to the reporting. The Disclosure Project submitted comments to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), mostly praising the proposed set, and providing suggestions for an additional asthma measure, as well as suggestions for how to spur implementation of these measures by the states.

March 2010
Meaningful Use of Health Information Technology
Health IT has tremendous potential to transform how health care is delivered. Congress sought to realize this potential in the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009 (HITECH), a part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), by including $34 billion in financial incentives for Medicare and Medicaid providers (e.g., hospitals and health care professionals) for their meaningful use of certified electronic
health records (EHRs). For providers, the financial implications will extend far beyond the $34 billion in incentives, with Medicare providers facing what will become substantial payment reductions if they are not meaningful users of health IT after 2015. The congressional intent is that providers, to receive these incentives and avoid future payment reductions, will have to do more than simply install EHRs in their practices; they will have to meaningfully use them to improve patient care. The concept of meaningful use is strongly supported by consumers and purchasers because it supports critical goals, which include:

  • Increasing care coordination and fostering better doctor-patient communication
  • Reducing medical errors and improving patient safety
  • Supporting delivery of evidence-based care
  • Reducing disparities by recording demographic information
  • Improving quality of care, while fostering more cost-effective delivery
  • Advancing payment reform (by supplying needed data on provider performance)
  • Providing patients with their own, portable health information

The Disclosure Project has developed a portfolio of advocacy and education tools to support consumers' and purchasers' work in this area, including:

In addition, the Disclosure Project has been working closely with the consumer coalition Consumer Partnership for e-Health (CPeH), which also submitted comments to CMS that were supported by a great deal of consumer organizations, many of whom are Disclosure Project members.

September 9, 2009
Comments on CMS' Proposed Changes to the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule and PQRI Program
In response to CMS' proposed changes to the Physician Fee Schedule and PQRI program, 23 consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations affirmed their support for comments that reflected concerns that CMS' proposed payment changes to the PFS for 2010 are not deep or wide enough to promote the transformation of the health care system into one that incents high-quality, high-value and patient-centered care. While many changes do require Congressional action, we specifically encourage CMS to rapidly pursue an agenda where the following are top priorities:

  • Adopting payment systems that encourage physicians and other providers to work together to improve care
  • Making payment decisions based on the perspective of consumers and purchasers, rather than sole reliance on resource costs
  • Shifting payments to reward performance instead of volume of care and reporting on care quality
  • Ensuring comprehensive collection and reporting of physician performance data, which is critical to helping payers reward physicians for quality and value of care, and providing consumers with information they need to make better decisions about their care
Read comments

August 31, 2009
Comments on CMS' Proposed Changes to the Outpatient Prospective Payment System Rules
In response to CMS' proposed changes to the OPPS rule for CY 2010, 17 consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations have affirmed their support for comments submitted by the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project regarding the direction that they would like to see the Hospital Outpatient Program Quality Data Reporting Program take.
Read comments

June 30, 2009
Comments on CMS' Proposed Changes to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System Rules
In response to CMS' proposed changes to the IPPS rule for 2011, 23 consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations have affirmed their support for four additional quality measures to be added to the Reporting Hospital Quality Data for Annual Payment Update (RHQDAPU) program, as well as reiterating their concern that CMS focus on adding measures related to health care outcomes and other measures that are meaningful to consumers and purchasers.
Read comments.

May 15, 2009
Comments on Senate Finance Committee Delivery System Reform Options
The Senate Finance Committee released a report on Transforming the Health Care Delivery System: Proposals to Improve Patient Care and Reduce Health Care Costs, the first in their three-part series on reform. The Disclosure Project submitted a letter strongly supporting the direction of reforms that were outlined, provided recommendations on the policy options, and identified some cross-cutting areas that were not addressed in the report.

December 16, 2008
Comments on Plan to Transition to a Medicare Value-Based Purchasing Program for Physician and Other Professional Services
Twenty consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations affirmed the goals, objectives, and assumptions outlined in the Issue Paper developed by CMS. The organizations also strongly requested that CMS actively coordinate and align with private sector initiatives and provided suggestions in the areas of measurement, incentives, data, and public reporting. Read comments

June 13, 2008
Comments on CMS' Proposed Changes to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System Rules
In response to CMS' proposed changes to the IPPS rule, twenty-five consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations have affirmed their support for 9 additional Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs) to which non-payment policies would apply, as well as an additional 43 quality measures to be implemented by FY 2011. The Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project also commented on a number of other data collection issues, as well as issues related to CMS' Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program. Read comments

March 5, 2008
Comments on CMS' Report to Congress, Plan to Implement a Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program
In response to CMS' Report Plan to Implement a Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program that was delivered to Congress towards the end of last year, thirty-one consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations have affirmed their support for hospital pay-for-performance and it being one component of more substantial payment reform. Under the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, CMS was required to submit a report to Congress on developing a plan for hospital value based purchasing. Implementing the plan, however, requires further action from Congress. Read comments

October 29, 2007
NY Attorney General Incorporates Disclosure Project Principles in Agreement on Physician Measurement
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement his office negotiated with Cigna health plan on its physician tiering program. What could have been a step backwards has turned into a positive advance for the physician transparency movement. This agreement bakes in the standards that were developed by the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project to foster transparency and accountability in health plan's physician performance reporting programs.

While developed for New York, this agreement sets the standards for other health plans across the country and is an important step forward in improving transparency for consumers. On behalf of the Consumer-Purchaser Disclosure Project, Consumers Union spoke at the press conference in support of a transparent process that is based on sound national standards and methodology. Along with Attorney General Cuomo and Cigna, representatives from the AMA and the Medical Society for the State of New York also spoke at the press conference. More information is available in the Disclosure Project's press release.

September 24, 2007
Disclosure Project Facilitates Meeting with New York Attorney General's Office on Tiered Physician Networks
On September 19, 2007, leading consumer, labor and purchaser representatives met with the New York Attorney General's office about our concerns that their recent actions could impede progress that has been made in physician performance transparency. Representatives from the following organizations were at the meeting: Center for Medical Consumers, Consumers Union, National Partnership for Women & Families, AARP, Xerox, SEIU/1199, and UNITE HERE. The Attorney General's office has articulated their concern for protecting consumers from false or misleading information. While we share the Attorney General's interest in protecting consumers from false or misleading information, we strongly support the value of programs that provide consumers with meaningful information about cost and quality. It is critical that we work to improve not shut down such programs. At the meeting, participants shared a draft of Proposed Criteria for Physician Performance Reporting that builds upon previous Disclosure guidelines that was well received.

September 12, 2007
CMS Releases New System of Records on Physician-Level Data
CMS has released a new system of records, Performance Measurement and Reporting System, under which data about individually identifiable physicians will be available for measurement at the individual physician level. The Disclosure Project and Pacific Business Group on Health submitted letters strongly supporting this new avenue, which take effect mid-October, for getting consumers information on the quality of their physicians while still maintaining patient privacy protections. View the Federal Register listing.

September 12, 2007
Consumers CHECKBOOK Sues HHS for Release of Medicare Physicians Claims Data
Consumers' CHECKBOOK/Center for the Study of Services won a lawsuit under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that will require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to release data on individual physicians' claims paid by Medicare in five states. The Disclosure Project sent a letter urging DHHS to not appeal. However, there is an almost 30-year old Florida court ruling that contradicts the current one so DHHS has appealed to a higher court for clarification.

August 31, 2007
Comments on Medicare's 2008 Physician Payment Policies
Thirty-one consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations affirmed Medicare's Physician Quality Reporting Initiative (PQRI) as one part of wide-ranging efforts needed to reform how providers are paid and held accountable and provides comments on strengthening the program.

June 12, 2007
Comments on Medicare's 2008 Hospital Reporting and Payment Policies
Twenty-four consumer, labor, and purchaser organizations support Medicare's efforts to ensure that hospitals are financially penalized for providing poor quality care and urge CMS to rapidly incorporate additional performance measures for public reporting.

April 19, 2007
Consumer, Labor and Purchaser Comment on Medicare's Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Plan
Current Medicare payment policies reward the delivery of quantity, not quality, of care. Value-based purchasing, which links payment more directly to performance, is a key strategy that CMS is adopting in order to evolve from being a passive payer to an active purchaser of care. More than 20 consumer, labor and purchaser organizations provided extensive feedback on Medicare's Hospital VBP Program.

January 24, 2007
Plan to Implement Medicare Hospital Value-Based Purchasing
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

October 10, 2006
Hospital Inpatient and Outpatient Payment Changes
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

August 21, 2006
Comments on Medicare Physician Payment
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

June 22, 2006
Consumers, Labor, and Purchasers Affirm June 12 Comments to Secretary Leavitt

November 1, 2005
CMS Physician Voluntary Reporting System
The Disclosure Project applauds the launch of CMS' Physician Voluntary Reporting Program and encourages physicians to report on the 36 measures of clinical quality.
Disclosure Project press release
Factsheet
CMS Release

January 18, 2005
Development and Adoption of a National Health Information Network
Office of the National Coordinator Health Information Technology

January 17, 2005
HCAHPS - Hospital Patient Experience Survey
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

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