What’s on Your Priority List for BPCI Advanced?

Model Year 3 (MY3) of Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced (BPCI Advanced) has begun and it’s time to get feet on the ground. Creating a to-do list can be a daunting task, as it’s difficult to know what to prioritize first. While certain activities can wait, other components must be in place from the outset for organizations to achieve clinical goals and financial success.

For exponential payoffs in MY3, participants should invest time and resources in three foundational activities.

1. The Kickoff Meeting

Convene a kick-off steering committee meeting to secure sponsorship from key executive and clinical leaders and consider your organization’s strategic objectives for participating in BPCI Advanced.

For example, hospitals new to value-based arrangements may be entering MY3 with a single clinical episode. Their goal may be to create a population health infrastructure to keep pace with peers. Likewise, many current participants have changed episode selections for 2020. Their goal may be to use MY3 to reset existing teams, onboard new members and assess current processes and expectations.

Outputs from initial steering committee meetings may include:

• Evaluating the organization’s current state
• Identifying physician leaders
• Designing an oversight structure to monitor performance and address high-priority challenges

Successful organizations keep numbers small and rotate members in and out of the group as needed to maintain effective and productive meetings.

2. The Winning Governance Structure

An example of an effective governance structure is a leadership committee that service line (or bundle-specific) workgroups report to. Both groups are aligned on strategic objectives, key performance indicators and include physician leaders. However, the focus of the service line workgroup is to identify and implement tactical steps to achieve objectives.

Regardless of the governance structure chosen, a key component of success will be managing stakeholder engagement early on. Be strategic about including the right people in the right meetings, including clinical, administrative and service line leaders.

A helpful tip is to consider revising or creating a Project Charter. This establishes each member’s role and expectations.

• Spend time early on reviewing the completed Charter with the team
• Ensure each member contributes to the Charter
• Review the Charter at a determined interval to avoid “scope creep”
• Start using unblinded physician data early during meetings
• Remember to share and celebrate successes big and small to further increase buy-in

Over time, a high level of transparency will encourage competition and motivate change, even among outlier clinicians.

3. The Post-Acute Preferred Network

The BPCI Advanced MY3 baseline data provided organizations with directional information about their post-acute care networks. It’s helpful to create a comprehensive current state analysis by evaluating historical trends within selected episodes. Current and new participants must ensure they have a clear understanding of:

• Discharges
• Utilization
• Length of stay
• Readmissions

In doing so, successful organizations have narrowed the number of post-acute facilities they discharge to, as well as identified and prevented any issues that might impact their network build.

The next step is to develop a selection process and network with current and/or potential post-acute care partners. It’s important to establish (or re-establish) a foundational understanding of the organization’s goals for BPCI Advanced with post-acute care partners. This helps to avoid a prescriptive tone and develop collaborative partnerships through preferred provider agreements and information sharing.

Secure a strong start.

Take an active role in your organization’s BPCI Advanced MY3 success with the right checklist. You’ll secure a strong start to MY3 and create a foundation for future growth.

Learn more

Premier® is working with BPCI Advanced participants on implementation plans for their care teams now. If you want to learn more about how to accelerate performance in bundled payments, visit www.premierinc.com/vbc.