Dive Brief:
- CMS says it is encouraged by results of the first shared savings performance year for the Comprehensive Primary Care (CPC) initiative, which pays clinicians to provide targeted patients with care management.
- Data released this week reflect results from 483 practices that served 377,000 Medicare patients and more than 2.7 million patients in total.
- While the participating practices achieved a combined $24 million in gross savings, few generated net savings by saving more than what they were paid for their efforts.
Dive Insight:
The CPC initiative involves a multi-payer partnership and primary care practices in seven regions: Arkansas, Colorado, New Jersey, Oregon, the Capital District and Hudson Valley in New York, the Cincinnati-Dayton region in Ohio and Kentucky, and Greater Tulsa in Oklahoma. It was only the Greater Tulsa region that achieved savings ($10.8 million) in excess of the CPC care management fees and earned more than $500,000 in shared savings payments.
That doesn't have CMS fazed; according to a blog by CMS Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality Dr. Patrick Conway, their prior experience demonstrates it takes time to improve care delivery. "These CPC initiative improvements came earlier than expected in a model involving significant changes in the delivery of primary care," Conway wrote. "We look forward to supporting these innovative practices in their progress as the initiative continues."
Highlights include more than 90% of the practices meeting quality targets on patient experience and utilization measures, and all regions achieving lower-than-targeted hospital readmission rates.