CMS Webinar Highlights New IT Requirements For CPC+ Initiative

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Six health IT requirements are in place for participants in the new program.

CMS announced earlier this month it was launching its largest multi-payer initiative to date, called the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) initiative, which could include more than 200,000 providers in up to 20 regions. CMS recently presented a webinar to explain the IT requirements for participants in the new program, according to Fierce Health IT.

The April 14 webinar, led by Laura Sessums, MD, the CMS Division of Advanced Primary Care director, was designed to introduce CPC+ to the program's key stakeholders: physician practices, payers, and healthcare information technology vendors.

“We know practices around the country have varying levels of experience and readiness to jump into the care delivery redesign that we envision; hence, we offer two tracks with different eligibility and care delivery redesign requirements,” Sessums said to kick off the webinar. Track 2 of the program aims to use IT to make healthcare more comprehensive. It also has six health IT requirements, which are noted in the program application form.

“CPC+ will be a multi-payer model to ensure practices have sufficient financial resources from the majority of payers who insure the patients they serve to support the staffing and other resources required to deliver the care we expect in CPC+,” Sessums said.

For CPC+, Medicare is “looking for payers willing to align their payment structures, quality metrics and data sharing with those of Medicare to meet the goals of CPC+,” Sessums said.

Patrice Holtz of the CMS Innovation Center told viewers the agency “definitely” wants more than just EHR vendors to participate in the program. A cornerstone of the CPC+ program will be the participation of both practices and vendors as well as the demonstration of “two-way communication” between them. “We believe [IT vendors] will gain an accelerated understanding of the health IT needs of primary care practices that are on the forefront of delivering advanced primary care,” Holtz explained.

While practices participating in either track need to get certified EHR technology in place, Track 2 will also require participants to implement the 2015 Edition CEHRT for care plan and social behavioral and psychological data during the program.

Vendors can elect to support only Track 1, and CMS will publish a list of participating vendors online.

The six health IT requirements for Track 2:

1. Systematically assess patients' psychosocial needs and inventory resources and supports to meet those needs;
2. Document and track patient reported outcomes;
3. Empanel patients to the practice site care team​​​​;
4. Establish a patient focused care plan to guide care management;
5. Identify and flag “patients with complex needs”; and
6. Produce and display eCQM results at the practice level to support continuous feedback.