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HHS announces new payment initiative for reducing CVD
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has announced they will be accepting applications for a new ACA payment model, designed to reduce the risk of CVD in Medicare beneficiaries, according to a press release.
“Million Hearts is a broad national initiative to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes by 2017. Million Hearts brings together communities, health systems, nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and private-sector partners from across the country to fight heart disease and stroke,” according to the press release.
The initiative, which will operate for 5 years, uses data-driven predictive approaches to generate patients’ individual risk for heart attack or stroke.
Unlike how providers are currently paid — meeting BP and cholesterol targets for patients as a whole — the Million Hearts initiative would personalize risk modification plans for each patient using a predictive modelling approach and risk scores and pay providers for reducing the absolute risk for CVD in their high-risk patients.
Providers and Medicare recipients will work together to determine the patients personal risk for stroke or heart attack in the next 10 years, and then providers will discuss various ways to reduce the patients risk and the benefits to each approach. Personalized risk modification plans will then be provided to patients to treat their specific risk factors (eg, quitting smoking, decreasing BP or taking medication).
Over 300,000 Medicare beneficiaries and 720 practices are expected to enroll in the Million Hearts CVD Risk Reduction imitative. Participating practices will include providers in family practice, internal medicine, geriatrics medicine, multi-specialty care and cardiovascular care.
“The Million Hearts initiative is a part of our efforts to promote better care and smarter practices in our health care system. It recognizes that giving doctors more one-on-one time with their patients to prevent illness leads to better outcomes, and that greater access to health information helps empower patients to be active participants in their care,” Sylvia M. Burwell, HHS Secretary, said in a press release.
Applications for the program can be found via the CMS website: http://www.cms.gov/Newsroom/MediaReleaseDatabase/Fact-sheets/2015-Fact-sheets-items/2015-05-28.html.