Furthering the agency’s stated intention to pay for value over volume, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently issued a proposed rule representing the first expansion of mandatory hospital-centric bundled payment models to non-elective procedures and for a patient population with a large proportion of chronic conditions. It is apparent that CMS views bundled payments as a reimbursement paradigm of the future to promote better care coordination and improved patient outcomes, while also reducing costs for the overall Medicare program. Some 30 percent of Medicare payments already flow through alternative payment models, and when finalized this Rule will move CMS closer to its stated goal of achieving 50 percent by 2018.