Since January 2026, 741 hospitals across the US have been operating under a bundled payment model that ties the full 30-day surgical episode directly to reimbursement. If your hospital is one of them, here is what your team needs to know.
Why This Matters
Most conversations about hospital quality focus on what happens inside a patient’s room. The Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM) model changes that. It extends accountability for a patient’s health to 30 days after they leave your hospital, and it connects the quality of their entire care experience, including whether they develop a pressure injury, directly to what your hospital gets paid.
TEAM went live on January 1, 2026. If your hospital is among the 741 participating facilities, the financial stakes are already real. When a patient’s care during and after their episode costs more than CMS’s target, your hospital may owe CMS money at reconciliation. Under-target performance earns your hospital a bonus payment.
Pressure injuries are a significant part of that equation. Patients who develop pressure injuries are more likely to be readmitted in the 30, 60, and 90 days following discharge. Readmissions cost money and count inside the episode. Wound treatment and dressings also fall within the episode cost calculation. Every pressure injury your team prevents translates directly into better financial performance under this model.
What It Actually Is
The TEAM model is a payment program where CMS sets a target cost for a specific type of patient episode. An episode begins when a patient is admitted for a qualifying surgical procedure and ends 30 days after they are discharged. The qualifying procedures include:
- lower extremity joint replacements
- hip and femur fracture treatment
- spinal fusion
- coronary artery bypass grafting, and
- major bowel procedures.
CMS adds up all of the Medicare costs associated with that patient across those 30 days: the hospital stay, physician services, rehabilitation, skilled nursing, home health, wound dressings, and more. That total is compared to a target price set before the year began. The target is calculated based on historical costs in your region, risk-adjusted for your patient population.
Your hospital’s quality score also plays a role. It can increase or reduce the payment outcome by up to 10%, and pressure injury-related measures feed into that score. Prevention is not just good clinical practice under TEAM. It has a direct bearing on what happens at reconciliation.
Participation is structured across three tracks with varying levels of financial risk, giving hospitals a degree of flexibility in how they engage with the model.
Watch the video below for a detailed walkthrough of how TEAM works, what it means for your hospital, and how pressure injury prevention fits into the bigger picture.
To learn how Bruin Biometrics can help your team reduce preventable pressure injuries and strengthen performance under the TEAM model, contact us at info@bruinbiometrics.com to learn how we can support your team.