Transitional Care Management Reimbursement to Reduce COPD Readmission

Reducing preventable readmissions for COPD is an important national health policy goal. Thus far, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) policies focused on incentivizing improvements in inpatient quality have had variable success. In its 2013 physician-payment rule, CMS announced new payments that reimburse ambulatory care providers for timely posthospital visits and transitional care management services. CMS hopes that posthospital transitional care and services will substitute for readmission, but the evidence supporting this hypothesis is mixed. In this article, we discuss ways for ambulatory pulmonologists to leverage transitional care management payments to enhance access for their patients with COPD while minimizing the risk of a paradoxic increase in readmission rates.