Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Program
What is the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program?
With the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) offers incentive payments for acute-care hospitals as a reward for the quality of care they provide those in an inpatient hospital setting.
This program adjusts their payments to hospitals under the Inpatient Prospective Payment System (IPPS) based on the quality of care provided to the patients.
Hospitals are scored on measures such as:
- Healthcare associated infections (HAIs)
- Mortality and complications
- Patient experience
- Patient safety
- Efficiency and cost reduction
Each hospital can earn two scores for these areas: one for what they achieve, and one for how much they improve, with their final score taking the higher of the two.
How does the hospital VBP program impact patients?
The hospital VBP program is designed to encourage hospitals to provide better care to their patients while also making their entire hospital stay more pleasant.
The hospital VBP program also helps to eliminate and reduce healthcare errors that can result in patient harm, further improving patient care.