April 23, 2019 | Susannah Luthi | Modern Healthcare
HHS on Monday launched an ambitious, double-pronged strategy to shift primary care from fee-for-service payments to a global fee model where clinicians and hospitals could assume varying amounts of risk.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar told a crowd of stakeholders at the American Medical Association in Washington that the CMS projects the new voluntary programs will shift at least a quarter of people in traditional Medicare out of fee-for-service.
Larger practices and health systems would have additional choices, which could be very lucrative but pose steeper risks. Under the first “professional option,” providers would assume 50% of the risk, including savings and losses. Under the “global option,” providers would take on full risk.
There is also a “geographic option,” in which health systems or insurance plans could assume the risk for the total cost of primary care for a swath of communities within a particular region.
Most of the newly announced Innovation Center models will launch in January 2020. The geographic option is projected to begin in mid-2020.
The administration officials painted the models as a sweeping overhaul of the fee-for-service model, even though the model is voluntary. Verma said the CMS hopes to incorporate state Medicaid programs as the policy rolls out across the country. Read the full article
