Opinion: Modest payment redistribution means quality program is working

Rachel Werner and R. Adams Dudley's article on Medicare's hospital value-based purchasing (VBP) program in the September Health Affairs concludes that the program is likely to have only a small impact on hospital payments. While it is true that relatively little money is likely to be redistributed from bottom-performing hospitals to those at the top, this is no reason to conclude that the program is not working as intended. Quite the contrary, it's performing exactly as intended so far.