Goals for Pay for Performance in Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: A Primer

Bundled payments for hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) have long been accepted by both commercial health insurance providers and transplant centers, effectively outpacing the use of this payment model elsewhere in health care. As with the rest of health care, interest in payment and health delivery reform has created demand for transplant providers to address value by incorporating quality metrics and strategic changes in network design The complexity of evaluating performance in HCT complicates the goal of rewarding providers for better performance and penalizing poor results. We provide an introduction to value-based purchasing and address potential considerations in the adoption of incentives to improve quality of care in HCT.