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In April 11 testimony before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee, American College of Surgeons (ACS) Executive Director and CEO Patricia L. Turner, M.D., M.B.A., said surgeons seeking to move beyond fee for service still find few physician-focused alternative payment models (APMs) available since none of the models submitted to the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) have been tested as proposed.
In her tesimony, Turner called on Congress to address cuts already expected in 2025 and do more to make alternative payment models available that incentivize access to timely, high-quality care for all surgical patients. She said that APMs can facilitate better care and could also be used to incentivize physicians to practice in rural or underserved areas.
“Unfortunately, efforts at implementing an Advanced APM were hindered by a breakdown of the process envisioned in MACRA. Along with dozens of other groups, ACS developed and submitted proposals that were reviewed, revised, and evaluated by the PTAC,” she said in her written testimony. “Fourteen proposals have been recommended for testing or implementation by the PTAC, but CMS has not tested a single model through the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) as proposed,” she said. “This bottleneck has created a disincentive for stakeholder investment into the development of APMs, as witnessed by the lack of new proposals on the PTAC website since 2020.”