New Medicare Primary Care Payment Initiative Designed To Switch Incentives
The Obama administration hopes to recruit as many as 20,000 primary care doctors to participate in this plan to shift how physicians get paid and provide care.
NPR:
Medicare Seeks Savings And Innovation With A Switch In Doctors' Pay
The Obama administration is recruiting as many as 20,000 primary care doctors for an initiative it hopes will change the way physicians get paid and provide care. The program, which was announced Monday, will be run by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The aim is to stop paying doctors based on the number of billable services and visits provided to Medicare beneficiaries and instead to tie payments to overall patient health and outcomes. (Kodjak, 4/11)
Modern Healthcare:
New CMS Primary-Care Payment Model Would Affect 20K Doctors
Provider practices will be able to participate in two ways. In Track 1, the agency will pay a monthly fee to practices that provide specific services. That fee is in addition to the fee-for-service payments under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule for care. Providers currently perform a service and then submit a claim to Medicare for payment. In Track 2, practices will also receive a monthly care management fee and, instead of full Medicare fee-for-service payments for evaluation and management services, they will receive reduced Medicare fee-for-service payments and up-front comprehensive primary-care payments. This hybrid payment design will allow greater flexibility in how practices deliver care outside of the traditional face-to-face encounter, the agency said. (Dickson, 4/11)