Bundled Payments for Care Improvement and Quality of Care and Outcomes in Heart Failure

Does the Medicare Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Model 2 program affect process-of-care measures or outcomes for heart failure? In this study, hospital participation in BPCI for heart failure was not associated with improvement in process-of-care measures or in 30-day or 90-day rates of readmission or mortality. The cross-sectional study used a difference-in-difference approach to see how the BPCI program performed in 18 BPCI hospitals versus 211 same-state non-BPCI hospitals for various process-of-care measures and outcomes, from November 1, 2008, to August 31, 2018. Data were analyzed from May 2022 to May 2023. The study concluded that participation in the BPCI was not associated with a significant differential change in the odds of receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors/angiotensin receptor blockers or angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors at discharge. It is important to note that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (BPCI) program was launched in 2013 with a goal to improve care quality while lowering costs to Medicare.