One of the most important goals at CMS is fostering an affordable, accessible healthcare system that puts patients first. A bundled payment methodology involves combining the payments for physician, hospital and other health care provider services into a single payment. The objective is to use this risk based payment structure to motivate health care providers to furnish services efficiently, to better coordinate care, and to improve the quality of care. Health care providers receiving a bundled payment may either realize a gain or loss, based on how successfully they manage resources and total costs throughout each episode of care.