First take on new CMS Comprehensive Primary Care Plus model

CMS CPC IconThis morning, I read about the recently announced next generation version of the CMS Comprehensive Primary Care model, which will require multi-payer participation and will involve up to 5K practices in 20 regions.

Sounds interesting.  I need to study it in more detail.  But based on my initial assessment:
  • I agree with the idea of pursuing payment and delivery system changes on a multi-payer basis to make it more compelling to providers.
  • I also agree with the idea of prepaying some E&M and then paying reduced FFS for E&M to cover only marginal cost of E&M office visits to make providers incentive-neutral on encounter modes.
  • But I disagree with move away from shared savings and implicit abandonment of the idea of non-governmental primary care-based organized systems of care pursuing care process innovation in favor of CMS taking over responsibility for defining a nationally-standardized multi-payer “care delivery model” and injecting it into individual primary care practices using a CMS-developed  “learning system.”
  • I also disagree with the Track 2 idea of partnering with “CMS-convened” IT vendors and contractual commitment to specific IT capabilities.  That approach basically takes MU, which was a huge distraction from real improvement, to even more obnoxious levels of micro-management.
Overall, I share the Fed’s frustration with the limited impact of previous efforts to transform primary care payment and delivery models, but I think the solution should be to define incentives which are more timely, coherent and consequential, enabled by more meaningful transparency requirements, clearer care relationships and some empowerment of primary care delivery organizations to define their own referral networks.

Share

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Free Subscription to Blog

Recent Posts