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LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DRIVERS OF ACO SUCCESS
The ACO Drivers for Success report details challenges and best practices for ACOs. NAACOS conducted in-depth interviews with leadership teams of high-performing ACOs and reviewed literature on ACOs. Five key strategies emerged and are highlighted in the report:
- Working across payers
- Building a high-value culture
- Leveraging data and tools
- Implementing successful clinical interventions
- Effectively engaging patients in care
In sharing these themes, NAACOS hopes to spur ACO adoption and success and ultimately to accelerate the transition to value-based care.
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SUBMIT QUESTIONS/TOPICS FOR CMS TOWN HALL
We close each NAACOS conference with a CMS Town Hall session that provides an opportunity for attendees to have an open dialogue with leadership at CMS. Submit your questions and topics for discussion to [email protected].
FALL 2024 ADVOCACY SUMMIT AND CONGRESSIONAL HILL DAY
On September 11 and 12 NAACOS hosted our first-ever, stand-alone advocacy summit in Washington, D.C., that featured small group discussions with congressional and administration officials, more than 50 meetings with congressional offices, and the presentation of six Champions of Value in Health Care Awards to Members of Congress. A special thank you to the more than 40 NAACOS members that made the trip to Washington to advocate on behalf of ACOs.
CHAMPIONS OF VALUE IN HEALTH CARE AWARD
NAACOS recognizes a select group of policymakers every year for their outstanding work supporting value-based care. At this year’s Fall 2024 Advocacy Summit and Hill Day, NAACOS members presented awards to Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA), and Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-WA). NAACOS thanks these lawmakers for helping to drive the congressional discussion regarding policy reforms that benefit the transition to value-based care. NAACOS will also be presenting awards to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT), Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), and Sen. John Thune (R-SD) at a later time.
LAWMAKERS PASS SHORT-TERM BUDGET EXTENSION
This week Congress passed a short-term extension of government funding through Friday, December 20. Lawmakers will reconvene in November for the post-election lame duck session to wrap up legislative business for the 118th Congress. We expect November and December to be very busy as Congress works to address many outstanding issues including:
- Physician Payments Reductions/Reforms
- Advanced Alternative Payment Model Incentives
- Telehealth
- Hospital At Home
- Medicare Extenders and Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments
- Community Health Center Funding
- Health Price Transparency
- Prior Authorization
- Pharmacy Benefit Manager Reform
Learn more about our congressional priorities today. Contact Robert Daley for help connecting with your Members of Congress.
| Short-Term – Priority items that need to be addressed before the end of year |
Long-Term – Priorities for reforming the physician payment system to encourage movement to value |
- Extend APM incentive payments
- Report on APM benchmark sustainability
- Extension of Web Interface for 3 years
- Roll back of PI requirements
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- Stabilize physician payments
- Expand non-financial incentives;
- Improve CMMI and provide more opportunities to engage in APMs
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RECENT UPDATES ON INNOVATION CENTER MODELS
- ACO REACH. The 2025 rate book for ACO REACH and financial specification documents are now available.
- GUIDE. An updated FAQ indicates overlap policies with MSSP and this new dementia care model, the Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE).
- The respite service claims under the GUIDE Model will not count towards MSSP expenditures, shared savings or benchmarking in 2024, and the duration of GUIDE.
- The per beneficiary per month payments will continue to be included in MSSP calculations.
- CMS previously announced a similar policy for ACO REACH
- CKCC and KCF. The first formal evaluation of Comprehensive Kidney Care Contracting (CKCC) and Kidney Care First (KCF) noted that the model failed to impact Medicare spending in its first year. However, there are positive results regarding optimal End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) starts and increasing the proportion of ESRD dialyzed at home. See the findings-at-a-glance, executive summary and full evaluation.
WE WANT TO SEE YOU AT THE FALL CONFERENCE!
First and foremost, the NAACOS team would like to apologize for the difficulty that many of you are experiencing with our new website. A great number of you have registered, and we know that the upcoming Fall 2024 Conference is going to be our largest event with high-quality presentations, peer-to-peer learning, and excellent networking. For those of you yet to register, our staff will be available to guide you through the registration process one-on-one. Please reach out to [email protected] or 202-794-9048 for timely and personalized support.
We hope you will join us in Washington, D.C., on October 16-18 at the Marriott Marquis for the Fall 2024 Conference. The agenda features leading value-based care experts and CMS officials sharing timely and essential information for ACOs, including Jon Blum, principal deputy administrator and chief operating officer at CMS, and Robbie Pearl, author of ChatGPT, MD. Onsite attendees will receive a complimentary, signed copy of this book.
See the Full Agenda
Still time to register! Register now for both the in-person and virtual conferences. All registrants receive access to the recorded conference sessions for six months.
RESOURCES AVAILABLE FOR TEAM PAYMENT MODEL
CMS’ Transforming Episode Accountability Model (TEAM) starts in 2026 and will require 741 hospitals to assume financial responsibility for five 30-day surgical episodes. The Institute for Accountable Care’s (IAC) analysis found that two-thirds of hospitals will lose an average of $1,350 per case based on current spending. IAC has posted resources on its website describing TEAM and its implications for hospitals and health systems. The model allows safety-net hospitals to defer downside risk until 2029 – we recently posted a list of hospitals likely to qualify for safety-net status. You can also access slides and a recording from NAACOS and IAC’s September 5th webinar. IAC has detailed analyses of the financial impact of TEAM on individual hospitals. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more or to schedule a complimentary briefing with our policy experts.
ATTEND THURSDAY’S PARTNER CALL FOR SPONSORSHIP DISCOUNTS
NAACOS Partners! Join us for an engaging call this Thursday, September 26 from 12:00 – 1:00 pm ET where we will be offering special sponsorship discounts to partners who attend! NAACOS staff will provide an update on the fall conference, our revamped Boot Camps, and reveal the 2025 partner prospectus. Don’t miss this chance to interact with the NAACOS team and to fully utilize the benefits of your partnership. This meeting is open to partners only. Register today!
REGISTER FOR WEBINAR: “AN ECQM LEAP: POM’S STRATEGIC TRANSITION INTO THE FUTURE”
In this webinar sponsored by Medisolv, you’ll hear from Tate Rugenstein, MPH, and Mary Margaret Dunneback, MPH, who were instrumental in Physician Organization of Michigan’s (POM) eCQM journey. They will review how they made the transition and are able to view aggregate eCQM results across their many practices. You’ll find out first-hand about what it took to get all practices generating a valid QRDA I file and the challenges they encountered while gathering data from multiple EHRs. Ken McCormick of Medisolv will also review how they worked hand-in-hand with POM to enable eCQM reporting, and together, they’ll talk through the valuable lessons both the vendor and the ACO learned during the process. This webinar will be held on today, September 26 from 2:00 – 3:00 pm ET and is free for NAACOS members. Register Now!
NAACOS BOOT CAMPS: THREE TIERS OF LEARNING
Over the past year, NAACOS has been working on recreating our boot camp experience. We listened to our member’s feedback and heard interest in more on-demand, virtual, and in-person learning opportunities. We heard that newer ACOs and team members new to ACOs would like resources aimed to their current level of understanding. Our more experienced members want more advanced learning opportunities. We used this information to expand our Boot Camp series to include:
Boot Camp Fundamentals. These on-demand videos include ACO essentials like compliance, basic data and analytics, and quality reporting for both MSSP and ACO REACH. While we only have compliance videos completed at this time, we will continue to add new topics. These videos are free to both members and non-members.
Boot Camp 101. Our new virtual boot camps will be held live annually with a one-day event on ACO Clinical Operations and a second one-day event on Data and Analytic. Topics will be presented at the beginner to intermediate level with opportunities to interact with fellow participants and ask questions of the faculty. Attendees will receive access to the recordings of the live events to rewatch when needed. The 2024 Boot Camp 101s are:
- Clinical Operations: November 14
- Data and Analytics: November 21
Boot Camp 201. These in-person events are held annually with two concurrent tracks on Clinical Operations and Data and Analytic. Presentations are targeted to experienced ACO employees and/or those who have completed Boot Camp 101s. The next Boot Camp 201s will be held on February 6-7, 2025, in Orlando, FL.
Registration for Boot Camp 101 and 201 events will open soon. Check our website for information on all of the Boot Camp events.
NEXT PRACTICE TRANSFORMATION LEARNING LAB TOMORROW!
Register Now to join tomorrow and future learning labs with a focus 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 through June 2025. The September and October sessions will focus on data used in practice transformation with September’s meeting focusing on the type of data available to ACOs and using it to find opportunity and track results. The October meeting will be a bit more advanced and dive into combining data from multiple resources, when and how to use it, and when additional platforms and resources are more helpful or needed. Our presenters for these sessions include Kamal Sumar MD, MBA, CPE, market vice president of population health, CommonSpirit, North Central Arizona Accountable Care, and Rachel Sabatino, CIN analytics lead, Christiana Care. This data discussion will occur on September 27 at 12:00 pm ET. Contact Karen Fetterolf for registration questions or issues.
IT’S ALMOST HERE: ACO SHOWDOWN ON OCTOBER 1
Don’t miss our first-ever live competition on October 1 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm ET where ProviDRs Care, Silverstate ACO, and VarMed Management Group will go head-to-head to show the ROI of their innovations using Clinigence Health analytic tools. Viewers like you will ask them questions and then vote to pick the winner, who will be announced live during the event! Each ACO will walk away with a prize, and you as a viewer will learn how these ACOs are using vendor products to innovate their care delivery and analytics.
The contestants for the October 1 Showdown are Justin Leitzen, CEO, ProviDRs Care; Rhonda Hamilton, chief operating officer, Silverstate ACO; and Marisela Irizarry, vice president of operations, VarMed Management Group. While these events will be recorded and available for future viewing from the NAACOS website, only live viewers may vote! Join us on October 1 from 2:00 to 3:00 pm ET. Register now to attend this free fun event!
CHECK OUT RESOURCES ON PARTNERING WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
NAACOS recently joined the Partnership to Align Social Care (P2ASC), a cross-sector collaborative created to enable successful partnerships and contracts between health care and community care networks. P2ASC has produced several resources with information on contracting with community care hubs (CCHs) and addressing social care needs, including:
As a member of the P2ASC CCH workgroup, NAACOS will be involved in future resource development. Additionally, NAACOS is considering co-developing resources specific to our members’ needs. If there are specific resource needs or relevant topics you would like more information on, please contact Alyssa Neumann.
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WHAT WE’RE WATCHING: NEWS ABOUT ACOS AND HEALTH CARE |
- The Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee (PTAC) hosted a public meeting last week discussing how to maximize participation in total cost of care models. Several presenters noted the need for sustainable benchmarks to promote long-term participation.
- Massachusetts’ Medicaid ACO program improved care for pregnant and post-partum enrollees, a new study found.
- A new Health Affairs Forefront post highlights the role ACOs play in improving primary care reimbursement.
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