ALLIANCE FOR VALUE-BASED PATIENT CARE PUBLISHES BLOG, PATIENT STORY NAACOS is continuing its leadership of the Alliance for Value-Based Patient Care, the multi-stakeholder group that educates policymakers on the importance of value-based care. Alliance members recently published a blog that summarizes our recent Capitol Hill briefing. If you missed the briefing, the recording and slides are available online. We also published a patient story involving NAACOS member Kootenai Care Network in Idaho. Visit valuebasedcare.org for more information on the Alliance’s work. Please share your patient stories by submitting this brief form.
HELP NAACOS ELEVATE OUR VOICE ON KEY TOPICS NAACOS continually demonstrates how ACOs can help address some of the key challenges in health care. We need your stories and examples to help elevate our role. Please reach out to advocacy@naacos.com if you have implemented strategies in these areas that are currently a focus for Congress and the administration:
Drug pricing, specifically addressing the Part B spending costs in your ACO
Behavioral health
Workforce, specifically how participation in ACOs has helped you reshape care teams to reduce clinician burden
JOIN THE FQHC, RURAL HEALTH WORKING GROUP NAACOS is convening a workgroup of ACOs who have or are interested in having federally qualified health centers (FQHCs), rural health centers (RHCs), and/or critical access hospitals (CAHs) participate in their ACOs. This group will identify and discuss issues unique to ACOs who have these provider types in their ACOs. We will begin to meet in June and interested ACOs should reach out to David Pittman.
COMMITTEE HEARINGS RELATED TO VALUE
The House Committee on Ways and Means Health Subcommittee recently held a hearing to examine policies that inhibit innovation and patient access. NAACOS submitted a statement encouraging lawmakers to support legislation to drive innovation, enhance the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) evaluation process, and encourage more specialist integration within total cost of care models.
The Senate Committee on Finance Health Subcommittee held a hearing on May 17 to discuss improving rural health care access. NAACOS was pleased that our member, Essentia Health, was invited to participate in the hearing. Essentia’s CEO discussed the unique challenges facing rural providers and how value-based care programs have helped the health system improve care and reduce costs for patients. NAACOS appreciates Essentia’s advocacy for ACOs and submitted comments highlighting ways the committee can support rural value-based care.
CONGRESSIONAL UPDATES
CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS RALLY SUPPORT FOR DEBT LIMIT INCREASE Lawmakers this week are racing to pass a debt ceiling bill to avoid a default after President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) struck an agreement over the weekend to increase the federal borrowing limit. The bill claws back unused COVID-19 funds and limits annual spending for two years. While it does not include any significant changes to Medicare or Medicaid, it does require agencies to submit plans to reduce direct spending when proposing rules that increase spending. The bill passed the House on Wednesday night in a bipartisan vote. The Senate is expected to consider the bill in the coming days with final passage likely over the weekend.
HOUSE COMMITTEE ADVANCES HEALTH BILLS The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved six bills before Memorial Day to reauthorize the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) animal drug user fees, allow additional flexibilities for organ procurement, permit value-based payment arrangements for drugs in Medicaid, require more Health and Human Services (HHS) oversight of policies that increase consolidation, and establish reporting requirements for 340B hospitals. The committee also approved a bill, aimed at increasing transparency and lowering costs. The Patient Act includes:
Price transparency requirements for hospitals and insurance companies,
Mandatory reporting regarding ownership of health entities,
Increased transparency into the effects of vertical integration in health care, and
Site-neutral payments for physician-administered drugs.
ADMINISTRATION UPDATES
MSSP APPLICATION CYCLE NOW ACOs will have until 12:00pm ET on June 15 to submit Phase 1 of their applications to start in the Shared Savings Program beginning January 1. This submission includes the ACO participant list and executed ACO participant agreements. Key application dates and deadlines, as well as detailed guidance for Advance Investment Payment (AIP) applicants are available. NAACOS hosted a webinar on the Phase 1 application on May 25, where you can learn about recent program changes that impact agreements beginning in 2024 and hear best practices for a successful application.
GUIDANCE ON ACPT NOW AVAILABLE CMS has published new guidance outlining the forthcoming Accountable Care Prospective Trend (ACPT) in MSSP. This ACPT adds a prospective growth factor that will account for up to a third of the trend rate for new agreement periods starting in 2024. The guidance also includes projected growth rates for agreement periods beginning between 2014 and 2023 (through Payment Year 2027) for aged/disabled and end-stage renal disease populations. NAACOS is continuing to analyze the impact of the ACPT, and additional information is forthcoming.
CMS RELEASES ADDITIONAL ACO REACH DATA CMS posted new public information files on ACO REACH and Direct Contracting that contain more detail than previously released on participants’ financial and quality performance, ACO and participating provider characteristics, the eligible population of beneficiaries, and the aligned population of beneficiaries. Data can be found at data.cms.gov. NAACOS is pleased to see more data available as we have advocated for making ACO REACH information available in the public use files comparable to MSSP.
ONC RELEASES DRAFT USCDI+ QUALITY DATA ELEMENT LIST The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) announced the draft United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI)+ Quality data element list for public comment. This data element list will serve as a baseline dataset to support electronically reported quality measures. Specifically, ONC seeks comment on its level of completeness, specificity, and usefulness of the companion guide. Comments must be submitted by June 16 via Jira. More information is available on the eCQI Resource Center.
ACCOUNTABLE HEALTH COMMUNITIES MODEL EVALUATION CMS published the second formal evaluation of its Accountable Health Communities Model, which helps connect Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries with health-related social needs with community support services. Spending and utilization were down for patients in the model, but not at statistically significant levels. A “findings at a glance” and Health Affairs blog summarize the model’s work.
EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES
TIME IS RUNNING OUT! REGISTER NOW FOR SUMMER 2023 BOOT CAMP! Register now for our summer boot camp being held June 15-16 at the Denver Airport Marriott at Gateway Park. Summer boot camp will provide information on data and analytics for new and advanced ACOs. This boot camp will meet the educational needs of ACO leadership and staff, including those responsible for building and overseeing data, analytics, and ACO financial interest. The full boot camp agenda is available.
This boot camp is only offered in person.
There is no virtual option.
Boot camps are not open to business partners.
Space is limited.
MEDICAID LEARNING LAB MONTHLY MEETING TOMORROW! NAACOS ACO members can sign-up now to join us for the June 2 meeting from 2:00 to 3:30 pm ET. This meeting will feature NAACOS Board Members Travis Broome, SVP of Policy and Economics, Aledade, and Karen Wilding, Chief Value Officer, Nemours. Travis will share his knowledge of benchmarking in Medicaid including information to help you understand how to better achieve Medicaid measures success in value-based care, explore the federal-state partnership and its impact on benchmarking, and ways to make a partner out of your state’s managed care organizations. Karen will provide her experience and perspective from the lens of an organization that cares for pediatric patients. If you have previously signed up for the Medicaid Learning Lab, this meeting should already be on your calendar. We hope you can join this live opportunity to learn and ask questions.
NAACOS IN REVIEW
NAACOS LIBRARY OF ACO PUBLICATIONS Did you know that NAACOS has an online library dedicated to ACO and value-based care publications? This library is located under the resource tab and features summaries and links to ACO and value-based care articles and research publications from the past seven years. You can go directly to the online library or search for your topic using key words in the search feature located in the upper right corner of the NAACOS website.
WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: NEWS ABOUT ACOS AND HEALTH CARE
Follow the Alliance for Value-Based Patient Care on social media. This multi-stakeholder coalition led by NAACOS promotes value-based care to policymakers. The Alliance will post updates and stories on Twitter and LinkedIn that you’ll want to follow!
This Health Affairs Forefront article dives into advanced payments for ACOs and how to incorporate them into future population-based models.
