Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are relying more on physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and other non-physician providers to deliver high-quality, low-cost care to assigned patients, according to a recent CMS study. Published in the most recent edition of Health Affairs, researchers from CMS and the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Medicine found that ACOs increased the…
Telehealth has become the go-to solution for health care during the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling providers and consumers to remain in contact for routine and non-emergency visits while brick-and-mortar spaces have been closed. Now that health care is reopening, however, telehealth remains a preferred communications medium, and many providers plan to expand it much more going…
Managing risk requires collaboration among the clinical and operations teams to develop effective approaches to improving the quality and cost of care. Experienced Medicare Advantage plans can share valuable lessons with organizations interested in improving their ability to meet clinical and financial performance targets, and managing downside risk. Join us for a discussion with…
ACOs usually concern themselves within issues like attribution, cost of care, quality metrics and shared savings and losses. But former CMS Administrator Donald Berwick asked the organizations to take on a much different, more fundamental issue today in a keynote talk at the virtual version National Association of ACOs (NAACOS), the main lobbying organization for…
In a recent Q&A session, CarePort Health CEO and founder Lissy Hu, M.D., discussed the value of clinical data stored in EHRs, within the context of the ongoing COVID-19 global pandemic. Real-time, cross-continuum data empowers clinicians, researchers and government agencies to anticipate care needs during a time when contextual patient information is critically needed. Can you provide…
As healthcare providers continue to respond to the COVID-19 crisis, CMS is granting key flexibilities to participants in alternative payment models (APMs) managed by the agency’s Innovation Center. CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced yesterday in a Health Affairs blog post that the agency is adjusting APM to address “the uniqueness of the situation.” Among the adjustments announced was…
The coronavirus has taken a devastating toll on Americans across the country, in lives lost and economic impacts. The health care system has been impacted along with many other aspects of American life. Providers have been greatly affected as they strive to do the right thing by delaying elective surgeries; they have faced disruption in…
Here are five changes that CMS outlined in a June 3 chart. Some have been previously announced. 1. Next Generation ACO Financial methodology changes: CMS is reducing downside risk by lowering shared losses by proportion of months during the public health emergency. The agency is capping gross savings upside potential for Next Generation ACOs at 5 percent….
Primary care practices focus on the preventive care that keeps patients healthy. Many of them are small but punch above their weight in providing access to services in underserved communities. A series of new surveys by researchers at NYU have found that the city’s primary care practices have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic….
CMS’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation offered clarity Wednesday on the future of its Next Generation and direct contracting models after providers publicly expressed uncertainty and confusion. The Innovation Center announced the Next Generation ACO model will get a one-year extension and the Direct Contracting Model will begin April 1, a three-month delay from the original…