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Comments have closed on the proposed CMS rule to overhaul the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), a controversial plan that would force accountable care organizations (ACOs) to take on more financial risk sooner than originally scheduled.
This is a critical moment for CMS, as the agency now faces the question of how hard and how far to push providers into taking on risk — something they have historically been averse to, despite a chorus of experts who say providers need skin in the game to push them toward value-based care.
Here’s what CMS wants: While ACOs currently have six years to shift to a risk-bearing model from a shared savings-only model, the proposed rule would give existing ACOs one year and new ACOs two years. It would also slash shared savings rates for upside-risk models from 50% to as low as 25%.