Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Announces Partnership for Patients

Program aims to increase quality of care, lower costs
April 13, 2011

Cigna's current programs
Today, Cigna has over 60 pay-for-performance arrangements that reward hospitals for improvements in quality and cost-efficiency. Unlike CMS’ set payment schedules, our pay-for-performance arrangements result from separate negotiations with hospitals; each one is uniquely tailored to the special circumstances applicable to the hospital. We anticipate a gradual expansion of pay-forperformance arrangements to achieve our goals of improving quality of care and promoting transparency. We will also monitor the potential costshifting to private payers by underperforming hospitals in the government’s Medicare and Medicaid-based value purchasing program.

Creating Value, Safety for Customers
On April 12, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services(CMS) announced Partnership for Patients. The Partnership for Patients program aims to bring together leaders of major hospitals, employers, physicians, nurses, and patient advocates along with state and federal governments in a shared effort to make hospital care safer, more reliable, and less costly. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provides funding for the program which has the following goals:

  • Keeping hospital patients from getting injured or sicker.
    By the end of 2013, reduce preventable hospital-acquired
    conditions by 40% compared to 2010.
  • Helping patients heal without complication. By the end of
    2013, reduce preventable complications requiring hospital
    readmissions within 30 days of discharge by 20% compared
    to 2010.

Cigna's Partnership Commitment Pledge
The success of the Partnership for Patients program depends upon the federal government, states, health care professionals, employers and others working together to achieve these goals.
Cigna is aligned with these groups in a pledge to:

  • Use market-based incentives that may include payments to promote improvements in safety and other
    dimensions of quality and value.
  • Work with other private payers, states and the federal government to align our efforts to measure performance
    on quality and safety.
  • Share information with our customers and other stakeholders and engage them as active partners for
    better, safer care.

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