Mayo Clinic supports Senator Maria Cantwell’s (D-WA) amendment to incentivize value in the Medicare physician payment formula in the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill.
Mayo Clinic and the Mayo Clinic Health Policy Center strongly support the need for Medicare to pay for value. Indeed, paying for value in healthcare is one of the four cornerstones for reform that emerged from our consensus driven health policy process. Value is defined as the equation of quality (outcomes, safety and patient satisfaction) over the cost of care over time.
We support provisions in the Senate Finance Committee bill that help move Medicare in this direction. We express thanks to Senators Klobuchar and Cantwell for their efforts to strengthen the provisions in the Chairman’s initial bill, and to Chairman Baucus for his leadership and support for moving Medicare toward a model that rewards value rather than volume.
