News: 1,500 hospitals will receive roughly $1.9 billion in VBP bonuses, CMS says

More than 1,500 hospitals will receive about $1.9 billion in bonuses for fiscal 2020 the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program, CMS reported. The results are similar to last year, with about 55% of participants receiving bonuses, Modern Healthcare reported.

Despite the VBP program’s lofty goal of improving quality of care while reducing prices, the program hasn't had much of an effect on quality, according to a report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GOA).

The GAO found that the “program generally reinforced ongoing quality improvement efforts but did not lead to major changes in focus.”

Just under 60% of those facilities obtaining a VBP bonus will see only small changes in their payments, less than half a percent up or down. The average net payment adjustment is 0.16%. The best-performing hospital in 2020 will get a pay bump of 2.93%, while the worst-performing hospital will see a 1.72% payment reduction, according to CMS.

Editor’s note: To read Modern Healthcare’s coverage of this story, click here. The findings by CMS can be found here. To read about the fiscal year 2020 penalties and bonuses under the Hospital Readmission Reduction program, click here.