Bundled payments are coming.  Are there any readers who have not heard?  But do we know what “bundled payments” might mean for anesthesiologists and pain physicians? Although there are certainly anesthesiologists participating in bundled payment systems—common examples include global surgical packages or OB packages—no one has written a field guide for the specialty.  The chapter on bundled payment for post-acute care strategies in MedPAC’s June 2013 Report to Congress provides a thorough and up-to-date review of general bundled-payment design issues.  More important, Congress will consider MedPAC’s recommendations in any new legislation on the topic, much as it did when it wrote and adopted the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, including a provision requiring Medicare to test a bundled payment approach. In a bundled payment methodology, a single, bundled payment covers all of the services delivered by two or more providers during a single episode of care or over...