Healthcare Workforce & Staffing

Over the past 30 days, CMS has accelerated the structural overhaul of surgical episode reimbursement with the launch of the mandatory Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM), which reintroduces bundled payments as a central value-based care lever after several years of reduced prominence. TEAM bundles will impose downside risk, including automatic 2% payment discounts for high-volume episode types like LEJR and spinal fusion, and tie hospital payments to composite quality scores—creating urgent workforce, care coordination, and data infrastructure demands for participating health systems seeking to avoid financial penalties and succeed under the new model. These changes signal a renewed push by CMS for mandatory engagement in advanced payment models and sharpen tensions for providers balancing operational preparedness, staffing challenges, and the risk of being outpaced by value-based competitors if infrastructure is not brought up to standard before TEAM’s rollout (bundled payments are back—and this time, hospitals may not be ready; TEAM Bundled Payments: Preparing for Downside Risk).