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46 HEALTHCARE NEWS CMS Launches New Bundled Payment Model: 6 Things to Know By Ayla Ellison C MS announced a new voluntary bundled payment model on Jan 9, which is the first advanced alternative payment model introduced by the Trump administration. Here are six things to know about the bun- dled payment model. 1. e new model, called Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced, includes 32 clinical episodes, with 29 in the inpatient set- ting and three in the outpatient setting. e clinical episodes may change in the future, as CMS may elect to revise them on an annual basis beginning Jan. 1, 2020. 2. Under the program, provider payments will be based on quality performance during a 90-day episode of care. A clinical episode will begin at the start of an inpatient admis- sion to an acute care hospital, which CMS re- ferred to as the "anchor stay," or at the begin- ning of an outpatient procedure, the "anchor procedure." e clinical episode will end 90 days aer the end of the anchor stay or the anchor procedure. 3. CMS selected seven quality measures for BPCI Advanced. Two of them, the all-cause hospital readmission measure and the ad- vanced care plan measure, will be required for all clinical episodes. e other five measures will only apply to select clinical episodes. 4. BPCI Advanced will qualify as an advanced APM under the Quality Payment Program, meaning participants will be eligible for bo- nuses under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act. 5. e first cohort of providers will start par- ticipation in the model Oct. 1, and the perfor- mance period will run through Dec. 31, 2023. Providers selected to participate in BPCI Advanced beginning Oct. 1 must be held ac- countable for at least one clinical episode and may not add or drop clinical episodes until Jan. 1, 2020. 6. Providers had until March 12 to apply. CMS will provide a second application opportunity for BPCI Advanced in January 2020. n Geisinger, Dignity Health Among First Hospitals to Pilot Apple's Medical Records System By Alyssa Rege D anville, Pa.-based Geisinger Health System, San Francisco-based Dignity Health and Balti- more-based Johns Hopkins Medicine will be among the first 12 hospitals nationwide to pilot Apple's medical records system, The San Diego Union-Tribune reports. Here are six things to know about the pilot program. 1. Apple announced its intent Jan. 24 to integrate patient health records into its Health app to make it easier for con- sumers to review their medical data. IPhone users would need to download the 11.3 "beta" version of iOS to access the feature, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. 2. While many hospitals and health systems already pro- vide patient portals and other programs for patients to ac- cess their health information, Apple aims to embed patient data from multiple providers into the iPhone's main sys- tem. This "deep integration" function could help improve smartphone users' health by allowing patients to grant per- mission for other app developers to use the data to help provide the best deals on medications and connect pa- tients taking the same medications, among other features, the report states. 3. Because the health records are stored on the patient's device, users can send that information to any provid- er they choose — even those whose EHR systems are not directly compatible with the system the patient's primary provider uses, according to Cheryl Pegus, MD, director of the division of general internal medicine and clinical inno- vation at the New York City-based NYU School of Medicine. 4. The challenge Apple and other tech companies with similar aspirations face, according to Dr. Pegus, is design- ing systems that do not inundate patients with irrelevant information. "The key is to find a way to utilize this health data where someone puts in the right algorithms that really cause the most relevant data to bubble to the top so then you can message it how you want to. If that can happen, that's go- ing to be a great use," Dr. Pegus said. 5. It is unclear if Apple's medical records system will be able to synchronize physicians' notes, the report states. The health records data will reside on Apple servers unless a patient's phone automatically backs up the data to the company's iCloud service. 6. Other hospitals involved in the pilot program include Chicago-based Rush University Medical Center; Los An- geles-based Cedars-Sinai Medical Center; and Philadel- phia-based Penn Medicine. n

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