NEARLY 700 ATTEND NAACOS FALL 2021 CONFERENCE Our Fall 2021 Conference was held last week with 361 participating in-person and 328 joining virtually. Speaker highlights included CMS’s Jon Blum opening the conference, Dr. Robert Pearl speaking about his new book, Uncaring, Lee Fleischer from the CMS Center for Clinical Standards, and CMS officials John Pilotte and Amy Bassano closing the conference at our CMS Town Hall. Both virtual and in-person attendees have access to the conference recordings for six months. We also ask that all attendees take a few moments to complete the conference evaluation. If any attendee needs continuing education credits, please e-mail Emily Perron. Be sure to mark your calendars for our Spring 2022 Conference on April 27–29 when we return to the Baltimore Hilton Inner Harbor.
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WHITE PAPER OFFERS RECOMMENDATIONS ON ADDRESSING HEALTH EQUITY Last week, NAACOS published a white paper discussing ways in which ACOs are well positioned to address and improve health equity among their patient populations. The paper outlines several policy recommendations that would better position ACOs to implement and sustain initiatives to address social determinants of health (SDOH) and minimize health inequities. The implementation of these recommendations will ensure that all ACOs are equipped to advance health equity in their work while improving quality of care and controlling costs. This paper is a part of ongoing work by NAACOS to address and improve equity in value-based care. Recently, NAACOS submitted comments in response to requests for information (RFIs) on advancing health equity and addressing social determinants. Health equity was also the focal point of several sessions at the NAACOS Fall 2021 Conference. NAACOS believes that with the right tools and supports, health equity can be effectively measured, tracked, and addressed through the ACO model.
CHAMPION OF VALUE IN HEALTH CARE AWARD PRESENTED TO WHITEHOUSE, GRASSLEY During the fall conference, NAACOS was pleased to present Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chuck Grassley of Iowa with this year’s Champion of Value in Health Care Award, which recognizes leadership in advancing value-based payment. Sen. Whitehouse has been a vocal supporter of ACOs and is working to get the Value in Health Care Act introduced in the Senate. Sen. Grassley was instrumental in freezing Qualifying Alternative Payment Model (APM) Participant (QP) thresholds at 2020 levels for the next two years during his chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee. Last year, the inaugural awards went to Reps. Suzan DelBene of Washington, Darin LaHood of Illinois, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Peter Welch of Vermont.
SAVE THE DATE: 2021 MEETING OF MEMBERS ON NOVEMBER 4 Get ready NAACOS ACO and DCE members because it’s that time of year again. NAACOS’ 2021 Meeting of Members will be held via webinar on November 4 at 2:00 pm ET. This will be your chance to hear the latest updates regarding NAACOS’ state of affairs, new resources, and future advocacy. It’s also a chance to ask questions of NAACOS leadership and to share ideas. Mark your calendars now and be on the lookout for more details to register soon. This event is for ACO members only and is not open to Business/Alliance Partners. Partners will be able to access the recorded session in the webinar archives.
DEMOCRATS PUSH TO SAVE SPENDING PLAN The Congressional Majority continues negotiations on passage of both the bipartisan infrastructure plan (BIF) and President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan (BBB). Currently provisions on drug pricing controls, new dental, hearing, and vision benefits, home health, and extension of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies are on the table, but progressive and moderate Democrats differ on priorities, and several of these proposals will likely fall away or be truncated in a final package. House Speaker Pelosi has set a new deadline of the end of October to come to resolution on both measures, and Congress is also working on legislation to lift the debt ceiling. NAACOS continues to work with our champion offices and other lawmakers to leverage our recent ACO congressional advocacy campaign to push for inclusion of the Value Act in Health Care Act and a stand-alone bill to fix the benchmarking flaw known as the rural glitch in a moving vehicle this Congress.
CALL FOR VOLUNTEERS NOW OPEN NAACOS is soliciting volunteers from our ACO members who are interested in applying to participate on one of our committees (policy or quality) or serving NAACOS in another way, such as speaking at a conference, assisting with grassroots advocacy, and more. Those interested need to complete the Call for Volunteers form before October 29. NAACOS staff will then compile all of the information on the volunteers in November, and the NAACOS board chair, along with the committee chairs, will select appropriate individuals to serve on the committees for 2022–2023.
If you are selected to participate on a committee, you will receive an invitation in December. If you volunteer to serve in another way, NAACOS staff will be reviewing the information and contacting you at appropriate times. Please note, you may not hear back right away if we are not in current need of a speaker in your expertise area or if there is not currently an advocacy campaign happening. If you have any questions or have difficulty with the form, please contact Anna LaFayette.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THE NEXT DIRECT CONTRACTING LEARNING DISCUSSION NAACOS and fellow DCEs will gather for our next Direct Contracting Learning Discussion on October 21. The event is for current, future, and potential DCEs to share your feedback, questions, concerns, and points of interest. This is intended to be a collaborative discussion and a forum for shared learning, and we ask that you come prepared to share your perspectives and react to issues at hand.
The meeting will start at 2:00 pm ET and take place over Zoom (passcode: 424162). Advance registration is not required, and the meeting will be recorded and posted on our website for those unable to attend it live. If you have issues you’d like to raise, please share them with DirectContracting@naacos.com.
MSSP PHASE 2 APPLICATION OPENS NEXT WEEK Phase two of the application submission period for the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) January 2022 start date opens October 13 and closes October 19 at 12:00 pm ET. This phase of the application cycle includes submission of the governing body and organizational chart, as well as the Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) 3-Day Rule Waiver and/or Beneficiary Incentive Program (BIP) applications, if applicable. As a reminder, these dates are subject to change. More details about the application timeline and an application toolkit are available from CMS.
NAACOS CELEBRATES SUCCESSFUL VIRTUAL HILL DAY As the Fall 2021 Congressional Advocacy Campaign comes to a close, we would like to thank all of our members who were able to take time to meet with their representatives. Despite having to remain virtual for this year’s campaign, we had as much engagement as ever! Altogether, 20 NAACOS member organizations across 15 states met with nearly 50 congressional offices from both sides of the aisle and both houses. Our ACO members were able to use these meetings as a way to tout their 2020 program results as well as garner support for the Value in Health Care Act (H.R.4587). This important piece of bipartisan legislation makes a number of important reforms to strengthen the MSSP, and an analysis has shown that it could generate $280 million in savings to Medicare over 10 years. If you weren’t able to participate in this year’s advocacy campaign, there are still opportunities to engage on NAACOS’ legislative priorities. Use NAACOS Take Action to customize a letter to your representatives and share your support for the Value Act!
ADDITIONAL DETAILS AVAILABLE FROM CMS ON ADVANCED APM BONUS Eligible clinicians who were QPs based on their 2019 performance should have received their 2021 5 percent APM Incentive Payments this summer. The Quality Payment Program (QPP) website now includes information about the Advanced APM bonuses, including the amount and the organization paid. CMS reminds QPs that they have until November 1 to contact the agency if they qualified for the bonus but have not yet received it. The agency published a list of QPs for which they do not have updated and accurate information to issue the bonuses, and the list is available in a zip file available here with the file name “QP Public Notice File for Payment Year 2021.”
2020 MIPS TARGETED REVIEWS EXTENDED CMS recently updated 2020 Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) scores due to a widespread scoring error. According to CMS, complex patient bonuses were incorrectly omitted from MSSP ACO MIPS scores. All MSSP ACOs should now see up to 10 complex patient bonus points reflected in performance feedback and added to final MIPS scores as appropriate. CMS recommends ACOs log-in to the QPP portal to view updated performance feedback and resulting payment adjustment, which will be applied to the 2022 payment year. CMS has also extended the MIPS Targeted Review deadline to November 29, 2021, at 8:00 pm ET. Targeted Review applications can be submitted via the QPP portal. For questions, contact QPP@cms.hhs.gov.
CMS RELEASES 2020 MSSP BENCHMARKING PUF CMS recently released the “2020 Number of ACO Assigned Beneficiaries by County Public Use File (PUF)”, is available. This file is related to the MSSP benchmarking methodology incorporating regional fee-for-service (FFS) expenditures into benchmarks. The PUF includes county and state identifiers, aggregate data consisting of total assigned beneficiaries by ACO for each county where at least one of their assigned beneficiaries resides, and total person-years by Medicare enrollment type. This standard analytical file can be used to analyze factors based on regional fee-for-service (FFS) expenditures in establishing, adjusting, updating, and resetting historical benchmarks for ACOs.
