News Feature | April 7, 2015

Obama Touts New Organization To Shape Healthcare Payment Reform

Christine Kern

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

RCM

HHS enlists big healthcare names in an effort to create alternative payment models by the end of 2016.

President Barack Obama unveiled a new initiative called the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, a group of public and private organizations tasked with finding ways to reduce costs by eliminating unnecessary treatments, tests, and hospital visits. The group will also be working to tie CMS payments to alternative payment models by the end of 2016. The White house stated more than 2,800 healthcare providers and consumer groups have already agreed to participate according to USA Today.

Among the healthcare players that have joined the initiative are Dignity Health, Rite Aid, and Cigna, which have pledge to help the CMS tie 30 percent of Medicare payments to alternative payment models by the end of 2016, according to Modern Healthcare.

Additional tasks of The Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network are to:

  • Serve as a convening body to facilitate joint implementation of new models of payment and care delivery,
  • identify areas of agreement around movement toward alternative payment models and how best to analyze data and report on these new payment models,
  • collaborate to generate evidence, share approaches, and remove barriers,
  • develop common approaches to core issues such as beneficiary attribution, financial models, benchmarking, quality and performance measurement, risk adjustment, and other topics raised for discussion, and
  • create implementation guides for payers, purchasers, providers, and consumers.

The American Academy of Nursing also participated in the launch of the new network with Academy President, Diana J. Mason, PhD, RN, FAAN, saying, “In the wake of the five year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, with 16.4 million additional insured consumers, it is important that all components of the healthcare system come together to achieve better health, better quality of care and lower costs. The Academy is pleased to participate in the crucial conversation today and applauds the administration for its efforts to expand alternative payment models beyond Medicare.”

CMS notes on its website, “The support of all Network participants is critical to building a health care system that provides better care, spends dollars more wisely, and enables healthier people and communities.”