An Experiment In Reducing Costs, Improving Care At Hillcrest Medical Center

Seventy-six year old Frank Morrow is not only having his knee replaced at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He’s also helping to test a Medicare payment system. Under the “bundled” approach, Medicare makes a single reimbursement for all the hospital and doctor care for heart and joint procedures, rather than making separate payments to the facility and physicians.

It’s a win-win-win proposition: The hospital gets guaranteed customers, Medicare saves 4.4% on procedures and Frank Morrow gets $271 as an incentive for going to a hospital that participates in the program.

Producer: Renato Perez

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<h1>An Experiment In Reducing Costs, Improving Care At Hillcrest Medical Center</h1>
<div>		<time class="posted-on" datetime="2009-10-26T00:00:00-04:00">
			October 26, 2009		</time>
		</div>
<p>Seventy-six year old Frank Morrow is not only having his knee replaced at Hillcrest Medical Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He’s also helping to test a Medicare payment system. Under the “bundled” approach, Medicare makes a single reimbursement for all the hospital and doctor care for heart and joint procedures, rather than making separate payments to the facility and physicians. </p><p>It’s a win-win-win proposition: The hospital gets guaranteed customers, Medicare saves 4.4% on procedures and Frank Morrow gets $271 as an incentive for going to a hospital that participates in the program. </p><p>Producer: Renato Perez</p><p>      <a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/legacy/C8AD6503-3D1B-44BD-BDC8-3A8135A15C22">        <strong>Related Article</strong>      </a>    </p><ul><li><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/?share=x">				Click to share on X (Opens in new window)				X			</a></li><li><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/?share=facebook">				Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)				Facebook			</a></li><li><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/?share=linkedin">				Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)				LinkedIn			</a></li><li><a href="mailto:?subject=%5BShared%20Post%5D%20An%20Experiment%20In%20Reducing%20Costs%2C%20Improving%20Care%20At%20Hillcrest%20Medical%20Center&body=https%3A%2F%2Fkffhealthnews.org%2Fnews%2F102609tulsa%2F&share=email">				Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)				Email			</a></li><li><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/#print?share=print">				Click to print (Opens in new window)				Print			</a></li><li>				<a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/view/republish/">					Republish This Story				</a>			</li></ul><em><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/about-us">KFF Health News</a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about <a href="https://www.kff.org/about-us">KFF</a>.</em><p><a href="https://kffhealthnews.org/morning-briefing/">Subscribe</a> to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.</p><p>This <a target="_blank" href="https://kffhealthnews.org/news/102609tulsa/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://kffhealthnews.org">KFF Health News</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://kffhealthnews.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/04/kffhealthnews-icon.png?w=150" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://kffhealthnews.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=10005&amp;ga4=G-J74WWTKFM0" style="width:1px;height:1px;"></p>

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