Hospitals are usually the episode initiators for bundling, but a physician group in Durham, North Carolina, has developed a commercial bundle of orthopedic services.
This article appears in the December 2015 issue of HealthLeaders magazine.
Bundling of orthopedic services requires optimizing the patient experience and finding postacute care partners who will follow the protocols that make the difference between winning and losing, say healthcare leaders experienced with this increasingly common reimbursement.
Hospitals are usually the episode initiators for bundling, but a physician group in Durham, North Carolina, has developed a commercial bundle of orthopedic services. Triangle Orthopaedic Associates began discussing the idea of bundling with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina in 2011, but it took almost two years to work out the plan, says Chief Administrative Officer Chris Adkins.
The orthopedic group has 63 physicians in 23 locations covering 12 counties, including eight urgent care clinics, seven MRI locations, and numerous physical therapy facilities. Triangle began bundled payments for total knee replacement with BCBSNC in December 2012. Since then, it has added a total hip replacement and a unicompartmental knee bundle.