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The Next Generation Accountability Care Organization Program appears to be on shaky ground as the Trump administration questions its capacity to generate savings and a potential replacement revs up.
The five-year demonstration program will expire at the end of 2020 unless the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar decides to extend it or make it permanent. But an industry group and several participants say that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is already telling Next Gen ACOs, which take on high amounts of financial risk, that the program will not be around for 2021.
That’s due to an evaluation report that found the program hadn’t saved Medicare money, said Mara McDermott, executive director for the Next Gen ACO Coalition, a group representing the 41 ACOs in the program. CMS could resume the program in 2022 or later, but no decision has been made, McDermott added.