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ACOS RECOGNIZED FOR INNOVATIVE WORK TO ADVANCE VALUE-BASED CARE
At the NAACOS Fall 2024 Conference last week, three member ACOs were recognized for their outstanding accomplishments in leveraging accountable care to improve quality and outcomes, lower or slow cost growth, and increase patient and provider satisfaction. The 2024 NAACOS Excellence Award was presented to Buena Vida y Salud ACO, Northwell Health, and Providence–Health Connect Partners. The award recognizes ACOs that demonstrate excellence in patient and community engagement, value culture, innovative use of data and technology, and clinical interventions and driving outcomes. Hear directly about their work on the NAACOS Excellence Awards page.
NAACOS BOARD PRESENTS GAUS WITH FIRST ADVOCACY IMPACT AWARD
At the NAACOS Fall 2024 Conference, NAACOS board members recognized retiring CEO Clif Gaus for his outstanding accomplishments and achievements advocating for ACOs and value-based care providers. Going forward, NAACOS will be awarding the Clif Gaus Advocacy Impact Award on an annual basis to a member who demonstrates unwavering commitment to advocacy and promotion of value-based care.
DISCUSS COMMUNITY HEALTH INTEGRATION WITH NAACOS MEMBERS
NAACOS will host a Discovery Call on Friday November 15 at 2:00 pm to discuss community health integration and new Part B payment codes for these services. We will be joined by the Partnership to Align Social Care, who will provide insights on how Community Based Organizations and Community Care Hubs are collaborating with ACOs and others. NAACOS is interested in hearing how we can better support our members with community health integration.
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LAME DUCK PREVIEW
With less than two weeks to Election Day, control of the White House, Senate, and House are very much up in the air. The election outcome will also determine the policy and political landscape for the lame duck session at the end of the year. During the lame duck lawmakers will need to:
- Extend government funding beyond Dec. 20;
- Pass additional disaster funding for impacted areas;
- Determine a path to increase the debt limit in 2025; and
- Address expiring health programs (telehealth, physician pay cuts, APM bonus, etc.).
Congressional Republicans and Democrats will also hold leadership elections for the 119th Congress. The President-elect's transition team will begin working with Congress to begin planning for the next administration’s top priorities and political nominees.
SENATE COMMITTEE ISSUES REPORT OF MEDICARE ADVANTAGE
The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Democratic staff recently issued a report highlighting an investigation into Medicare Advantage prior authorization denials. While it’s important to note that the report did not include input from the subcommittee’s Republican members, it does come at a time when Congress has been working on broadly supported bipartisan reforms to MA prior authorization.
CMS OPENS APPLICATION FOR MIPS EUC
Eligible ACOs can now apply for an exception to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) as a result of Hurricanes Helene and Francine. CMS determined that its Extreme and Uncontrollable Circumstances (EUC) policies will apply to eligible clinicians in certain designated counties in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana. The MIPS EUC policy doesn’t automatically apply to MIPS clinicians in APMs, however APM entities can request a reweighting through the EUC exception application. The deadline to apply is December 31. More information on the MIPS EUC Exception process is on the QPP website.
CMS automatically determines if an ACO’s health equity adjusted quality score is affected by an EUC. If that happens, an ACO’s quality score is set to the higher of the ACO’s quality score or the 40th percentile MIPS quality score, which meets the Shared Savings Program quality performance standard. Also, CMS will reduce the amount of the ACO’s shared losses by the percentage of the total months affected by an EUC and percentage of the ACO’s assigned beneficiaries who reside in a county affected by an EUC.
ACOS’ 2023 PERFORMANCE RESULTS EXPECTED NEXT WEEK
MSSP ACOs have been delivered their embargoed 2023 performance results. At the NAACOS Fall 2024 Conference, CMS indicated that the agency expects the full release to occur next week. ACO REACH results may be released next week as well. Shared savings payments are expected to go to ACOs in mid-November. NAACOS encourages ACOs to publicly share their positive results to demonstrate their positive work to improve our health system.
VIRTUAL BOOT CAMP 101: ATTEND CLINCAL OPERATIONS, DATA AND ANALYTICS, OR BOTH
NAACOS’ new virtual Boot Camp 101 Registration is now open. We offer ACO beginner-to-intermediate learning for Clinical Operations on November 14 and for Data and Analytics on November 21. Each of these boot camps is a one-day virtual event with opportunities to interact with fellow participants and ask questions of faculty. All attendees receive access to the recordings of the live events to rewatch as needed. The events will run from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm ET in an interactive virtual environment. Detailed agendas are available.
Need a quick review or understanding of ACO basics? NAACOS is currently building a curriculum of Fundamentals, which are on-demand videos covering ACO essentials like compliance, basic data and analytics, and quality reporting for both MSSP and REACH. Compliance fundamentals are posted, and new topics will be added frequently. These videos are free to both members and non-members.
Do you prefer in-person learning? Our Boot Camp 201s are in-person events for experienced ACO employees and/or those who have completed our Boot Camp 101s. Mark your calendars for February 6–7 in Orlando when we will offer two concurrent tracks on Clinical Operations and Data and Analytics. Registration for these will open later this month.
PRACTICE TRANSFORMATION LEARNING LAB OCTOBER 25 SESSION
This edition of the Practice Transformation Learning Lab will continue the discussion of using data in your ACO. If you have not registered for this series, you can register now to join tomorrow and future learning labs. This series runs monthly through June 2025 and focuses on practice transformation from fee-for-service to population-based care models. This series occurs on the Fourth Friday of the month from 12:00 – 1:30 pm ET. The October session will focus on combining data from multiple resources, when and how to use it, and when additional platforms and resources are more helpful or needed. Our presenters include Kamal Sumar, market vice president of population health, CommonSpirit, North Central Arizona Accountable Care, and Rachel Sabatino, CIN analytics lead, Christiana Care, along with a few of her colleagues. If you have missed previous sessions or have interest in previous learning lab content, members can watch it now. Contact Karen Fetterolf for registration questions or issues.
VIRTUAL AFFINITY GROUPS RETURN
NAACOS Affinity Groups focus on peer-to-peer exchange of current ACO and population health issues. There are currently six groups categorized by ACO role. You may join one or more group depending on your current roles and responsibilities. You will need to sign up individually for each group that you would like to participate in – once you have signed up, you will receive the Zoom log-in information for the virtual meetings. This is your time for discussion with your peers on timely topics related to your value-based care journey.
Operations
October 29 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Operations Affinity Group
Quality
November 5 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Quality Affinity Group
Data and Analytics
November 12 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Data and Analytics Affinity Group
Executive
November from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Executive Affinity Group
CMO and Clinical
December 3 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Clinical Affinity Group
Compliance and Legal
December 10 from 3:00 to 4:00 pm ET
Sign up for the Compliance and Legal Affinity Group
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