Pay-for-performance makes its way into dialysis clinics

Chattanooga (Tenn.) Times Free Press: A new Medicare rule may ding dialysis centers by up to two percent of their reimbursement in 2012 if they don't meet quality standards the agency sets. The program "is the agency's first pay-per-performance system, and it won't be the last." The agency has, however, run various experiments that pay providers for better performance. Penalizing those that don't perform is considered an obvious next step that has worried some providers. "The change, unrelated to federal health care reform, has been in the works for years, as federal officials watched ballooning costs for treatments related to kidney failure. In the United States, the vast majority of the 330,000 people receiving outpatient dialysis are covered by Medicare, which accepts enrollees with end-stage renal disease regardless of age, according to CMS" (Bregel, 8/9).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.