More hospitals to get bonuses than penalties in 2015 under value-based purchasing

More hospitals will see a payment bump than a penalty in the coming year under Medicare's value-based purchasing program, according to newly released federal data for more than 3,000 U.S. facilities.

A total of 1,714 hospitals will have their Medicare payments boosted in 2015, 463 more than in 2014, according to a Modern Healthcare analysis of data the CMS posted Wednesday. The posted adjustments, however, range between 0.01% and 2.09%, which suggests there could be some anomalies in the data. Under the structure of the program, payments should adjust up or down as much as 1.5% for fiscal 2015. Modern Healthcare has reached out to CMS about why bonuses for more than 40 hospitals in the CMS data surpass that maximum. 

A total of 1,375 hospitals, meanwhile, will have their Medicare payments docked next year. The cuts will range from 0.01% to 1.24%. The number of hospitals facing cuts represents only a slight improvement over last year, when 1,400 hospitals were penalized under the program. The average penalty for 2015 is negative 0.30%. That's higher than the minus 0.26% in 2014 and minus 0.21% adjustments in 2013.