Direct contracting favors new entrants over existing ACOs

The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation designed its direct-contracting program to attract providers that didn’t take part in its accountable care models. Experts predicted the model’s financial terms would entice new provider organizations.

The Medicare Shared Savings Program “had a core problem: If you did not have an established patient base, you could not be an ACO,” said former CMS official Travis Broome, now senior vice president for policy and economics at consulting firm Aledade. Direct contracting appears to solve that problem.

Direct contracting is an evolution of the Innovation Center’s ACO models and offers new waivers, beneficiary engagement tools and other flexibilities. Its participants will be called direct contracting entities instead of ACOs.

Full Article