McKinley Introduces Bill to Improve Patient Care for Seniors and Save Billions

Congressman David B. McKinley, P.E., (WV-1) introduced legislation today with Reps. Jerry McNerney (D-CA), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Tom Price (R-GA), Chairman of the Budget Committee and a doctor, to modernize Medicare, improve care for seniors, and create significant savings.

H.R. 1458, the Bundling and Coordinating Post-Acute Care (BACPAC) Act, creates a new approach that coordinates care for seniors when they leave the hospital. By bundling post-acute care payments, BACPAC creates powerful incentives that will lead to savings of $20 to $50 billion and strengthen Medicare’s finances.

“For the past three years, we have been working on this legislation to help reduce the stress for seniors dealing with Medicare after a hospital visit. This bipartisan reform addresses the complicated decisions Medicare patients face by providing private-sector coordinators to guide patients through the process. BACPAC will strengthen Medicare for decades to come, help seniors receive the most effective care, and save taxpayers tens of billions of dollars,” said McKinley.

“BACPAC will save money and result in better care for patients and more certainty for providers,” said Rep. McNerney. “According to a recent study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, one in eight Medicare patients were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of being released after surgery. BACPAC is an evidence-based model that aims to significantly reduce these costly and often unnecessary readmissions. I will urge my colleagues to support this commonsense reform to Medicare payments.”

“When it comes to health care reform, our goal is always to have the highest quality of care delivered in the most efficient and effective manner possible. These reforms would both increase choices for Medicare patients and save taxpayer dollars,” Rep. Price said, “They are an important part of building a more accountable and responsive health care system.”

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, President of the American Action Forum, has written on this proposal saying, “It’s past time for Medicare to be modernized. A sensible first step toward this objective is with post-acute care bundling – payment based on the treatment of an entire illness or injury, not each individual service provided.”

See the original statement here.