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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) quietly released changes to the ACO REACH Model, prompting one industry group to react to the modifications.
The National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) said it is still digesting the changes and listening to members’ initial thoughts.
“I think it’s a bit mixed,” Aisha Pittman, senior vice president of government affairs for NAACOS, said of the changes in an interview with Fierce Healthcare.
Some of the changes—like removing expenditures for two catheter codes impacted during a $2 billion fraud scheme—were met with a positive reception from the industry group.
The organization is still evaluating the effects of technical benchmarking changes. For example, CMS will not increase the percentage of expenditures comprising the benchmark blend rate and will reduce the Standard ACO regional blend adjustment ceiling from 5% to 3%.