Washington, D.C.– Congressman Erik Paulsen (MN-03), Congressman Ron Kind (WI-03), and Congressman Kenny Marchant (TX-24) have introduced the bipartisan Hospital Outcomes Act to improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries and streamline hospital payment programs based on best practices from around the country.  Specifically, the Hospital Outcomes Act would replace the penalty-driven, flawed programs mandated for Medicarewith a single, comprehensive payment system that rewards positive outcomes.

“The current payment programs at our hospitals are too complicated, overly burdensome, and ineffective,” said Congressman Paulsen.“There are efforts are under way across the country, including in Minnesota, that are making the health care system more efficient and helping patients. We should take the lessons from what is working and apply them to the Medicare program, so that we can lower costs, improve outcomes, and reduce the administrative burden for hospitals and providers.”

The bill is modeled after programs like The Reducing Avoidable Readmissions Effectively (RARE) Campaign in Minnesota, which has reduced avoidable hospital readmissions by nearly 20 percent and saved millions of dollars in avoided health care expenses. This work resulted in the campaign winning the 2013 John M. Eisenberg Patient Safety and Quality Award.

Several Minnesota health care organizations have praised the objectives of this legislation:

“MHA members appreciate Congressman Paulsen’s hard work to improve health care through changes to the payment system that reward high-quality, low-cost providers,” said Lawrence J. Massa, Minnesota Hospital Association president and CEO.“We look forward to working with the bipartisan sponsors of this legislation to advance these goals.”

“A value-based payment policy incentivizes quality and efficiency in the health care system,” said Michael Vale, 3M Health Care executive vice president. “At 3M, we continuously work to improve health care outcomes and quality for our employees, our customers, and patients. We commend Congressmen Erik Paulsen (MN), Ron Kind (WI), and Kenny Marchant (TX) for crafting legislation based on what is working across the country to truly and significantly improve patient care.”

For complete text of the bill, click here. 

Congressman Paulsen, a champion of small business and advocate of free enterprise, entrepreneurship, and innovation, serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, the bicameral Joint Economic Committee, and is co-chair of the Congressional Medical Technology Caucus.

For more information on Congressman Paulsen’s work in Congress visit paulsen.house.gov. 

###