84% of Force Therapeutics Hospitals Comply with CMS THA/TKA PRO-PM, Avoiding Costly Penalties

Vast majority of hospitals utilizing Force Therapeutics patient engagement platform on track to satisfy CMS THA/TKA PRO-PM mandate, avoiding millions in financial penalties

NEW YORK, March 20, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Force Therapeutics, the leading surgical episode of care management platform, is proud to announce that 84% of hospitals where Force is deployed are already on track to satisfy the requirements of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Total Hip and Knee Arthroplasty Patient-Reported Outcome - Performance Measure (THA/TKA PRO-PM) ahead of the first mandatory reporting deadline in September 2025.

Driving Quality in Orthopedic Care
The THA/TKA PRO-PM was introduced by CMS to capture and measure improvements in pain and function following surgery as assessed by patients themselves. With THAs and TKAs being some of the most common elective procedures for Medicare beneficiaries, CMS is measuring this data to address variations and disparities in outcomes and clinical practice that ultimately incur unnecessary costs on the healthcare ecosystem. As such, this measure is aligned with the ongoing CMS shift away from fee-for-service (FFS) and toward value-based care models (VBC), which directly tie reimbursement and incentives with patient outcomes.

The requirement for hospitals under mandatory reporting is to collect and report a complete set of patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and other data elements, including risk variables and matching variables. These data points must be collected both pre-operatively (up to 90 days before surgery) and 1 year post-operatively for at least 50% of all eligible patients. Beyond necessitating efficient workflows to ensure effective collection and reporting processes, this mandate also requires hospitals to keep patients engaged up to 1 year following surgery–a particularly challenging task for most hospitals.

Hospitals that fail to meet this requirement will be deemed out of compliance with the requirements of the CMS Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) program, which would incur a 25% reduction in the Annual Payment Update (APU) for all of the hospital's Medicare FFS Part A claims, including non-orthopedic claims; moreover, the hospital would be disqualified from participating in CMS value-based purchasing programs.

"By leveraging the Force Therapeutics platform, we've not only safeguarded our PROs compliance with CMS regulations. We've also prevented millions in potential penalties," says one Orthopedic Chair at a large health system in Connecticut. "It's more than just compliance; it's a strategic advantage that's saving our organization millions." 

Enhancing Patient Engagement and Operational Efficiency with Force Therapeutics
Achieving consistently high PROMs collection rates, particularly 1 year after surgery, requires sustained and extensive patient engagement. This requires pre-operative education and optimization, including virtual joint classes, and post-operative education, exercise videos, virtual PT, care instructions, virtual check-ins, PROMs completion, and more.

"At Force Therapeutics, we don't just help our clients meet current regulatory mandates;" says Force Therapeutics CEO Bronwyn Spira, "we equip them with expert clinical guidance to stay ahead of upcoming regulations. In that way, Force becomes a safeguard against shifting regulations and reimbursement policies."

With Force Therapeutics, hospitals keep patients engaged through:

• End-to-end patient education: Prepare patients to submit forms by engaging them throughout their journey, increasing survey completion rates and boosting satisfaction scores.
  
  
• Patient-centric gamification: Motivate patients in their treatment plan by empowering them to set recovery goals and earn rewards upon completion, making their recovery more engaging.
  
  
• Automated Forms and Reminders: Send time-based outcome forms, personalized check-ins, and reminders to patients, ensuring they stay engaged without experiencing notification fatigue.
  
  
• EHR Integration and Reporting: Generate real-time data reports through seamless EHR-integrated PROMs to streamline submissions to registries and CMS quality reporting programs.

To gain insights from top-performing Force Therapeutics users as they discuss first-hand experience with THA/TKA PRO-PM voluntary reporting, access this panel featuring quality specialists and coordinators.

About Force Therapeutics
Force Therapeutics is a surgical episode of care management solution for patients undergoing specialty procedures. Force improves patient engagement, satisfaction, and outcomes by delivering high-quality, clinically validated remote care while empowering providers with data-driven tools and automated workflows that reduce variation and improve the operational efficiency of hospitals, ASCs, and health systems.

SOURCE Force Therapeutics