In our last post, we introduced the CMS TEAM mandate and highlighted why hospitals need to start preparing now. While avoiding financial penalties is an obvious incentive to act, the real cost of inaction goes well beyond just the risk of fines. 

Delaying your hospital’s TEAM strategy comes with a host of hidden costs that can chip away at your financial health, hurt your reputation and impact patient care.

Recognizing these less obvious but equally serious consequences is key to driving your organization to act. The CMS TEAM program is designed to measure quality and safety, making sure cost savings don’t come at the expense of patient outcomes.

The Opportunity Cost

One of the biggest hidden costs is the opportunity cost of missed incentives. TEAM isn’t just about avoiding penalties. It’s also a chance to earn substantial bonuses for strong performance.

If you’re not optimizing care pathways and outcomes, you’re not simply holding steady; you’re leaving real revenue on the table that others may be collecting. Performance on key quality measures directly affects these financial payouts.

The Patient Impact

At the core of value-based care and the TEAM model are patient outcomes and safety. Without strong, consistent patient engagement and care coordination, you’re far more likely to see:

• Higher readmission rates: Missed follow-ups, unclear instructions or poor patient education often lead to preventable readmissions—major cost drivers that directly impact TEAM performance. The Hybrid Hospital-Wide All-Cause Readmission Measure is a key quality metric.
• More complications and safety events: Poor adherence to recovery protocols, missed warning signs or delayed interventions can lead to complications that extend recovery and drive up resource use. CMS includes specific patient safety measures to track this.
• Lower patient satisfaction and outcomes: Patients who feel confused, unsupported or disengaged report lower satisfaction, which affects HCAHPS scores and your hospital’s reputation.

These aren’t just clinical issues; they directly hit your financial performance under TEAM and reflect critically on your commitment to patient safety.

The Internal Strain

Without a clear TEAM strategy, hospitals risk overwhelming staff, wasting resources and missing critical performance targets. Care teams may end up juggling complex episodes manually, leading to burnout, turnover and breakdowns in communication.

Without standardized workflows and real-time data, it’s harder to track patient progress, monitor safety metrics and make informed decisions, all of which are essential for success under TEAM.

The risks don’t stop there. Hospitals that don’t adapt will also lose ground competitively. Strong TEAM performance helps attract patients, build stronger relationships with payers and boost your hospital’s reputation for delivering high-quality, cost-effective care.

The Call to Action

The hidden costs of ignoring the CMS TEAM mandate reach far beyond compliance. They put your hospital’s financial stability, operations and reputation at risk. This isn’t a problem that can be solved with small fixes. It requires a proactive, system-wide approach.

In our final post, we’ll show how CipherHealth can help your hospital succeed under TEAM, improve outcomes and protect your bottom line.