Medicare's Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier - Will the Tectonic Shift Create Waves?

Medicare's new Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier will financially reward physicians who provide high-quality, low-cost health care. Will this tectonic shift in physician payment set off a new wave of efforts to improve quality and cost performance? For at least two decades, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has been transforming itself from a passive payer to an active purchaser of health care, a process that was accelerated by the passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). One ACA provision ushered in a new payment paradigm for physicians the Physician Value-Based Payment Modifier (PVBM).(1) The PVBM seeks to financially reward physicians who provide health care that is high value both high in quality and low in cost.(2) Although the PVBM is being rolled out to physicians in large groups first, the legislation ...