Healthcare's Latest Game Changer: Medicare's Comprehensive Care Joint Replacement (CCJR) Program

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS’s) recently announced the Comprehensive Care Joint Replacement Program –the CCJR-- is a five-year payment initiative that aims to bundle all inpatient and outpatient payments for patients who have lower-extremity joint replacement surgeries. The idea is to establish a payment arrangement that accounts for the cost of an entire episode of care. It’s a risk/reward arrangement viewed as a sign of the times, if not the future, as it reveals how CMS and other payers will likely reimburse for most major procedures going forward.