A 2015 change in Medicare’s value-based purchasing program has resulted in some hospitals with low quality scores receiving bonus payments.

The 2015 change added a low-cost measure to the program, and as a result, some hospitals that performed especially well on the low-cost measure received bonuses even though their other quality scores were low.

The new study “Adding A Spending Metric To Medicare’s Value-Based Purchasing Program Rewarded Low-Quality Hospitals,” published recently in the journal Health Affairs, found that “…the new emphasis on spending rewarded not only low-spending hospitals but some low-quality hospitals as well.”

Go here to learn more about how Medicare’s change in its value-based purchasing program has resulted in financial rewards for low-quality but low-cost hospitals.