2025 CMS PFS Final Rule
ACOsAPP ReportingCMS RulesMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)Value-Based Health Care
November 6, 2024

The 2025 CMS PFS Final Rule: The Five-Pronged Strategy Towards Comprehensive Accountable Care

The 2025 CMS PFS Rule landed with a bang, and it’s not just the weight of the 3,088 pages. We’re one year closer to 2030, the year that CMS intends to have all Traditional Medicare patients in a relationship with a clinician who is accountable for total cost of care. The push to the finish line is the primary driver behind each of the QPP-related policies in this Rule. For CMS to accomplish its goal within its stated time-frame, accountable care programs must promote equity, expand into rural and underserved areas, and align to reduce administrative burden. A slew of…
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2022 QPP Performance Report
ACOsAlternative Payment Models (APM)Merit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)Quality Payment Program
May 23, 2024

2022 QPP Experience Report: Address 3 Key Findings Now to Avoid Future Penalties

At first glance, CMS’s recently released 2022 QPP Experience Report (PDF) seems reassuring, because the majority of clinicians avoided financial penalties under MIPS. Don’t be fooled! While overall success and failure rates in the report may lead you to conclude that merely participating in the QPP (either in MIPS or as an APM) is enough to do well, trends in the report tell a very different story: Without a concerted and cohesive strategy to simultaneously improve efficiency and demonstrably improve quality, providers will begin to see their consistent results fall short of minimum performance thresholds. The QPP Experience Report details participation…
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APM Performance PathwayAPP ReportingCMS RulesData Best PracticesMIPS Value PathwaysValue-Based Health Care
July 19, 2023

The 2024 CMS PFS Proposed Rule: 7 Attempts to Balance Participation Goals with Value

Reading between the many lines in the 1,920-page 2024 Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (PFS) Proposed Rule, one thing is clear: CMS is still struggling to move providers into Advanced Alternate Payment Models (APMs) and keep existing ACOs moving forward on the path to value-based payments. The APP Reporting tug-of-war between CMS and ACOs results in a slight concession for providers worried about difficulty and cost of all-patient APP Reporting. We’ve seen this before, of course. Remember the delay in sunsetting the Web Interface for ACOs in the 2022 Rule and the retreat from mandatory transition to risk in the 2023…
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ACOsCMS RulesCorporate Health CareEpisodes of CareFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health Care
December 13, 2022

5 Key Health Care Trends to Watch for in 2023

After an intense few years in health care, will 2023 deliver more punches? While 2022 was dubbed a COVID “recovery” year, as patient volume rebounded, health care staffing shortages festered. Burnout prompted physicians to retire, sell practices to corporate owners, or leave traditional health care for other employment. Simply put, 2022 was short on recovery and stability. Even still, 2022 fostered important new trends and discoveries. Despite inflation and recession fears, corporate health care continued its growth undaunted, with new startups and equity-backed practice expansion. Value-Based Care spurred corporate territorial reach into legacy health care preserves. Optum, ACO enablers like…
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APM transition strategy, Terry Hush, Race to Value
ACOsAlternative Payment Models (APM)Value-Based Health Care
December 7, 2022

How to Define Your Transition Strategy to APM Success

Health care systems that have struggled to survive pandemic pressures won’t get a reprieve from competition any time soon. Since Covid shook the world, private investors in health care delivery have emerged as the most potent force driving change in delivering Value-Based Care. Equity-backed medical groups, ACO enablers with venture capital funding, and corporate health care have built their future around Alternative Payment Models (APMs) with population-based payments, which create a predictable revenue stream for their operations and investors, while drawing physicians and patients away from legacy systems. In this November 21, 2022 interview on Race to Value with Dr.…
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ACOsAPM Performance PathwayClinical Data RegistryValue-Based Health Care
November 30, 2022

Catapult Your Performance Using the APP and Achieve Data Sufficiency

In a previous post, we demystified the Alternate Payment Model Performance Pathway (APP) and explained how, by partnering with a Clinical Data Registry experienced in data aggregation and result submissions to CMS, you can avoid the bugaboos falsely attributed to APP reporting—perceived high costs and impossible timelines. Here we’ll show you how to leverage your new skills to elevate your ACO’s performance across the board, from quality scoring to effective patient management—and achieve data sufficiency, in the process. Achieve Better Scores and Insights from Quality Reporting Once your ACO’s data from all practices is aggregated, you will be ready to…
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Roji Health Intelligence Alternate Payment Model Performance Pathway APP
Alternative Payment Models (APM)APM Performance PathwayClinical Data RegistryPerformance Improvement
November 16, 2022

No Worries About ACO APP! It’s Your Pathway to Improvement

With the release of the 2023 Physician Fee Schedule Final Rule, CMS upheld its commitment to sunset its Web Interface for ACO quality reporting after 2024. Beginning in 2025, ACOs will be required to report through the Alternate Payment Model Performance Pathway, or APP. Some have expressed concerns about the APP. But this new reporting process actually has some significant advantages. It presents ACOs with a valuable trove of data to advance along the path toward better outcomes, health equity, and curtailed costs. In fact, the baseline for APP—data from provider systems, including their EHR data—is the foundation for data…
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Alternative Payment Models (APM)APM Performance PathwayEpisodes of CareValue-Based Health Care
October 31, 2022

Launch Time! Five Intervention Strategies to Fuel Your APM Liftoff

If you've followed the Smart Guide articles so far, your APM is ready for take-off. You’ve developed a data-sufficient technology infrastructure with both provider and claims data, carefully constructed your clinical network and engaged your clinicians, and implemented strategies for payers and consumers. Your APM may be operating already, with data ready to use. Now you are at the crossroads, and your choice will determine whether your APM will really transform outcomes for your patients and achieve maximum Value, or whether your APM will be average. That choice pivots on interventions. Only through specific interventions with clinicians and patients can…
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Alternative Payment Models (APM)APM Performance PathwayConsumers & PatientsFuture of Health CareValue-Based Health Care
October 26, 2022

Need to Fire Up Your APM’s Consumer Strategies? Start Here

You've read it and you've experienced it: consumer frustration with an impersonal health care bureaucracy offering few conveniences, difficult navigation, high cost, and lack of transparency. Even as some organizations try to move forward with consumer-focused strategies, these are often still fledgling efforts with little overarching structure that fail to attract consumer attention. Beyond implementing an EMR patient portal, traditional providers have been slow to develop the consumer focus necessary to generate trust and loyalty. Meanwhile, consumers are welcoming an abundance of health apps and other resources that enable them to manage their health and, if sickness strikes, get quick…
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Alternative Payment Models (APM)APM Performance PathwayEpisodes of CareMedical Decision-MakingValue-Based Health Care
October 19, 2022

3 Ways to Engage Physicians to Lead Transformation in Your APM

Doctors leaving medicine spells trouble for health care. And there’s real reason for concern. A few weeks ago, the Mayo Clinic released its most recent study on physician burnout, revealing the highest rate in the survey’s 10-year history. Sixty-three percent of responding physicians reported one or more characteristics of burnout, with many noting depersonalization, an inability to maintain a work-life balance, and career dissatisfaction. The Mayo story was significant enough to be picked up by The New York Times. This worrisome trend creates a real quandary for Value-Based Care and adoption of Alternative Payment Models (APMs), since their success or…
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