In Bundled Payments for Care Improvement, what is included in an episode?

• A. Only inpatient hospitalization costs.
• B. All related care across settings from the index event through post-acute care.
• C. Only outpatient clinic visits.
• D. Only post-acute rehabilitation costs.

Answer: (B)

Bundled payments group the entire trajectory of care for a single clinical event into one payment. In BPCI, an episode covers all related care across settings from the index hospitalization through the post-acute period, within a defined timeframe. This means the payment includes inpatient services, outpatient visits, and post-acute care (like skilled nursing, home health, rehab, physician services, labs, imaging, medications, etc.) as long as they’re related to that index event. The idea is to coordinate care across the whole continuum, not just a single setting. So the best choice is the one that describes all related care across settings from the index event through post-acute care.