On October 17, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(CMS) announced that its Comprehensive
Primary Care (CPC) initiative generated a total of $57.7 million in
gross savings in Medicare Part A and Part B expenditures in its
second performance year. According to CMS's report, the total savings generated
by the program nearly doubled from the first year to the second.
More then half of the participating CPC provider practices will
share in over $13 million in shared savings.
The CPC initiative is a four-year program that integrates a defined
payment model aimed at lowering healthcare costs through improved
care at selected primary care practices in seven specific regions
across the U.S. The initiative's goal is to foster
collaboration among primary care providers, patients, and other
providers as a mechanism for improving the quality of care and
decreasing the volume of services. Participating practices
receive a monthly non-visit based care management fee and have the
opportunity to share in net savings to the Medicare program on
behalf of their fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries if certain
quality metrics are met. CMS attributes the success of the
initiative to the efforts of the participating providers who have
worked towards redesigning their practices in order to provide
truly "comprehensive primary care."
The program's positive performance has encouraged CMS to build
on the CPC initiative through the CMS Innovation Center's Comprehensive Primary Care Plus
(CPC+) initiative which is set to begin on January 1, 2017. CPC+
will include 14 selected regions and will likely meet the criteria
to qualify as an Advanced Alternative Payment Model under the
Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015's Quality
Payment Program rule. Applications from primary care practices
seeking to participate in CPC+, which had to be submitted by
September 15, are currently under review.
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