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Collaborations with participants in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation’s (CMMI) Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Primary Care Flex demo could allow hospices to leverage their skill sets to access more patients.
Hospices and palliative care providers can come to ACOs by two main avenues. They can become members of those organizations themselves, or they can contract with them through a preferred provider network.
In these preferred provider arrangements, the two parties can negotiate mutually beneficial terms that are customized to the needs and characteristics of their patient population. This may be increasingly important going forward. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced plans to ensure that 100% of Medicare beneficiaries become aligned with an accountable care entity.