The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has selected Sandra Fitzler, senior director of clinical services at the American Health Care Association, to serve on the newly created Care Transitions Measure Development Technical Expert Panel (TEP).

The TEP was created in conjunction with the Colorado Foundation for Medical Care as a way to measure hospital readmissions and physician follow-ups to gauge patient care transition quality. CMS has been placing pressure on the healthcare community to reduce the number of unnecessary hospital readmissions, which increases costs. It has proposed a concept known as “post-acute payment bundling,” which would place hospitals in charge of disbursing funding to the proper post-acute healthcare provider. It would be a way to cut down on unnecessary hospital readmissions.

“[Fitzler’s] expertise with efforts to improve care transitions, eliminate unnecessary rehospitalizations, and measure quality will be a great asset to the TEP and the long-term care community at large,” AHCA President and CEO Bruce Yarwood said in a statement.