Jon Fohrer was not at all happy last year that the CMS required all hospitals in the Indianapolis market to participate in its bundled-payment program for total hip and knee replacement procedures on Medicare patients.
The five-year demonstration, launched by the CMS Innovation Center in 2016 to speed the shift to value-based payment, was controversial among hospital leaders and surgeons because it was mandatory for all hospitals in 67 markets across the country. Congressional Republicans, led by then-congressman and later HHS Secretary Tom Price, attacked the Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) program and called it government interference in medical practice.