Payment and Delivery Reform Case Study: Congestive Heart Failure

Abstract

Editor’s note: In addition to Darshak Sanghavi (photo and bio above), this post is coauthored by Meaghan George, a project manager at the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution. The post is adapted from a full-length case study, the first in a series of case studies made possible through the Engelberg Center’s Merkin Initiative on Physician Payment Reform and Clinical Leadership, a special project to develop clinician leadership of health care delivery, payment and financing reform. The case studies will be presented using a "MEDTalk" format featuring live story-telling and knowledge-sharing from patients, providers, and policymakers. The event series will kickoff on Wednesday, April 16 from 10 a.m. – Noon EST. Introduction Clinicians and hospitals across the nation struggle with providing and paying for optimal care for their congestive health failure (CHF) patients. However, there are opportunities to make care better. In fact, of the more than 10,000 pages in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementing regulations, the least talked about are the dozens of small experiments led by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) that test new ways to pay for medical services. We use a case study approach to investigate and tell the story of what two academic medical centers, Duke University Health System (“Duke”) and University of Colorado Hospital (“Colorado”), are doing to innovate and improve CHF care while implementing alternative payment models offered by CMMI.