Medicare to Rework Billions in Payments

The Wall Street Journal (online registration required): WASHINGTON—The Obama administration on Monday set an ambitious goal to rework hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals in an effort to reduce waste and make older Americans healthier.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said she wants Medicare to make 50% of its payments to doctors and hospitals on the basis of the quality of care they provide, rather than the quantity, by the end of 2018. Hitting that goal would mark a big change in a program that paid providers $362 billion for their services in 2014.

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