Alternative Approaches to Measuring Physician Resource Use

CMS and others in the policy community have been increasingly interested in moving to a value based purchasing (VBP) system for physicians under original fee-for-service Medicare. Under VBP, physicians' payments would depend on the "value" of services provided. Physicians who routinely use relatively few resources while maintaining adequate quality services would receive larger payment updates than physicians providing similar or lower quality services with more resources. CMS has focused on the use of commercially developed episode groupers to measure resource use, but few studies have examined feasible options in Medicare. The purpose of this task order is to develop and analyze alternative approaches to measuring physician resource use.