The Payment Reform Glossary

What's the difference between a bundled payment and an episode payment?  How are prospective payments different from fee-for-service payments?  What are the differences between regression-based risk adjustment and clinical category risk adjustment, and between prospective and concurrent risk adjustment systems?  And what exactly are APMs, APCs, CMGs, CRGs, DSRIPs, ECRs, G-Codes, GPCIs, IBNR, MIPS, MLR, OCM, PCOP, RUGs, and TCOC?
 
The answers to those questions and many more can be found in The Payment Reform Glossary, a free new resource developed by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.  You can download it by clicking here or by visiting www.PaymentReformGlossary.org.  If you've been confused by the complex terminology and blizzard of acronyms surrounding payment reform, The Payment Reform Glossary provides definitions and explanations for over 400 words, names, and abbreviations describing key payment reform concepts and programs.

 
It's difficult for stakeholders to determine whether to support a payment reform proposal if they don't understand the words and abbreviations used to describe it, and it is difficult to reach agreement when the same words are used by different people to mean different things or when words are perceived by some stakeholders to mean something different than what was actually intended.  The Payment Reform Glossary is designed to facilitate a better understanding of payment reform concepts and to create a foundation for a common language for developing and discussing payment reform concepts so they can be supported and implemented by all stakeholders - patients, providers, employers, health plans, and government agencies.