Hospital Scorecards Should Reflect CMS P4P Plan

I have spoken with many hospitals who are working hard to prepare their balanced scorecard systems for POA requirements and IPPS payment reforms. There’s another subtle change affecting reimbursement that hospital executives should have their scorecards reflect.

At the March 6, 2008 Senate Finance Committee roundtable, AHA said the goal of the CMS P4P plan should be to improve performance, not to cut the program’s budget. Their recommendation is to award points on any required safety or quality measure for both performance AND improvement over a baseline.

This concept is very much in line with the spirit and structure of the balanced scorecard, where measures are evaluated based on trend analysis, looking for sustained improvement over time.

This will require two efforts:

• show the baseline performance on your scorecard
  
• provide training to department leaders to discuss the trend during performance discussions