The Value of Outpatient Imaging-Based Cancer Screening Episodes

In order to shift US health care towards greater value, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is exploring outpatient episode-based cost measures under the new Quality Payment Program and planning a bundled payment program that will introduce the first ever outpatient episodes of care. One novel approach to capitalize on this paradigm shift and extend bundled payment policies is to engage primary care physicians and specialists by bundling outpatient imaging studies and associated procedures—central tools in disease screening and diagnosis, but also tools that are expensive and susceptible to increasing health care costs and patient harm. For example, both breast and lung cancer screening represent target areas ripe for bundled payment given high associated costs and variation in management strategies and suboptimal care coordination between responsible clinicians. Benefits to imaging-based screening episodes include stronger alignment between providers (primary care physicians, radiologists, and other clinicians), reduction in unwarranted variation, creation of appropriateness standards, and ability to overcome barriers to cancer screening adherence. Implementation considerations include safeguarding against providers inappropriately withholding care as well as ensuring that accountability and financial risk are distributed appropriately among responsible clinicians.