Payment Reform Information

• A new report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, Transitioning to Accountable Care: Incremental Payment Reforms to Support Higher Quality, More Affordable Health Care, describes a range of transitional payment reforms that can enable primary care practices, specialists, and hospitals to deliver significant improvements in cost and quality for payers and patients as they build the capacity to transition to more comprehensive payment reforms. The report also discusses a series of important issues in the design of any new payment system, including pricing, establishing appropriate limits on risk, and ensuring quality. It also discusses the importance of alignment among multiple payers and ways to achieve that, including ways that the Medicare program can best support payment reform efforts. You can download the report at the CHQPR website (www.paymentreform.org).
• Click here for a Transcript of Don Berwick’s 2-2-11 presentation about Accountable Care Organizations - seminar sponsored by the Brookings Institution, with many useful insights into his approach and priorities at CMS, the role of the Innovation Center, etc.
• New Case Studies Available: The NBCH Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Guide serves to educate purchasers and purchaser-led coalitions on how they can implement value-based purchasing programs in their own organizations and local communities. The Guide provides resources ranging from literature reviews to case studies to tips to getting started. Periodically, NBCH will issue new case studies to enrich the already available materials.

CMS Launches a Dedicated Web Page for the Medicare Shared Savings Program (Shared Savings Program)

On March 31, 2011, The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published in the Federal Register proposed rule CMS-1345-P, Medicare Program; Medicare Shared Savings Program: Accountable Care Organizations that implements the Medicare Shared Savings Program (Shared Savings Program) and establishes the requirements for Accountable Care Organizations. CMS has launched a dedicated web page at www.cms.gov/sharedsavingsprogram for Medicare FFS providers and other providers of services and suppliers. Bookmark the web page and check back often, as CMS continues to add information on the program.