A group of accountable care organizations (ACOs) have joined forces to advocate for the expansion of high-needs care models that improve outcomes and reduce costs for Medicare’s most vulnerable patients. The newly-formed Complex Care Alliance has taken a stand, urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to extend crucial Medicare initiatives beyond their […]
CMS Innovation Center
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience (GUIDE) Model is live. Among its participants are a wide range of home-based care providers. CMS said that there will be almost 400 participating organizations building Dementia Care Programs (DCPs) to serve Medicare beneficiaries at first. “DCPs represent a wide range of […]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) are taking steps to improve oncology care and primary care this week. While both are not directly related to home-based care, the federal government pushing this agenda should pique providers’ interest. After all, both primary and oncology […]
Officials from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its main innovation hub touted a “strategy refresh” on Wednesday. Among its key pillars, the refresh calls for greater payment and regulatory flexibilities supporting the provision of home- and community-based care. CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure discussed the strategy reset during a Wednesday afternoon […]
The home health industry is once again in line for a major regulatory change. This time, it’s the looming expansion of the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, which has been active in nine demonstration states since 2016. As part of its most recent home health proposed payment rule, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & […]
Once its 100% acquisition of Kindred at Home is finalized, Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) believes it will become one of the premier home health care providers in the entire country. It certainly has the resources to be just that. That’s partly because the payer-provider hybrid is also directly contracting with traditional Medicare through the Global […]
The U.S. health care system has hit a defining moment in its shift toward value-based care, with the major decision in 2021 being an aggressive acceleration or cautious slowdown of the nation’s portfolio of alternative payment models. Liz Fowler, the new head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), has been thinking about […]
In somewhat of a surprise move, U.S. health care policymakers unveiled plans last week to expand the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, a nine-state Medicare demonstration designed to better align reimbursement to quality of care. Despite backing from most of the home health industry, the HHVBP Model — first implemented in 2016 — had […]
In April 2019, federal health care officials unveiled a new direct-contracting payment model to accelerate the shift toward value-based care for U.S. primary care providers. The goal of that model — which has 51 entities already signed up — was to bring a private-sector approach to risk-sharing arrangements in traditional Medicare. The U.S. Centers for […]
The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) is in need of a “course correction,” top U.S. health care officials believe. And part of that may include a national expansion of the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing Model. Created under the Affordable Care Act, CMMI — also known as the CMS Innovation Center — supports the […]