News: Despite participation drop, CMS to accept applications for BPCI Advanced Model Year 3

CMS announced that it will soon begin accepting applications to participate in its second cohort of the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) Advanced Model starting in January 2020, Revenue Cycle Advisor reported.

The federal agency recently announced via email that it intends to open the application period for the program’s third performance year sometime in April. This announcement comes after recent news that participation in the BPCI Advanced model has dropped 16% in the first five months.

The BPCI Advanced model combines payments to the physician, hospital, and other healthcare provider services. Participants can get an additional payment if all the costs for an episode of care are less than a benchmark price, discounted by 3%. If they exceed the benchmark, the providers would have to repay up to 20% of the excessive costs to Medicare. CMS currently offers bundled payments for 32 clinical episodes—29 inpatient and three outpatient. The agency is finalizing the selection of new clinical episodes for Model Year 3, which will include outpatient total knee arthroplasty.

Eligible hospitals and providers interested in applying for Model Year 3 of the BPCI Advanced Model may submit an application via the BPCI Advanced Application Portal.

More information on the BPCI Advanced Model can be found in this CMS fact sheet and on the CMS website.

Editor’s note: To read Revenue Cycle Advisor’s coverage of this story, click here. To read more about the participation rates for this model, click here. To read about the American Hospital Association’s early concerns about the model, click here.