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Speaking at the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS) Spring 2019 Conference, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma stated that ACOs in the government’s new Pathways to Success program are gearing up to take on higher levels of financial risk.
Verma gave an opening keynote speech on April 25 at the Washington, D.C.-based conference presented by NAACOS, a trade group with more than 330 ACO members. She remarked that on the move to a value-based system, “CMS is correcting misaligned financial incentives that have been in place for decades and creating new innovative payment models for providers. But as I’ve learned in my time at CMS, these models are complex to develop.”
Adoption, Verma continued, is perhaps the biggest challenge. “Today, only 10 percent of clinicians are participating in Advanced APMs [alternative payment models] and taking on significant levels of risk—no wonder frustration continues