Washington, DC – America’s Physician Groups (APG) joined 18 other medical groups today calling on Congress to support legislation freezing the current thresholds for incentive payments to advanced alternative payment model (APM) practices.
“Freezing the patient and payment thresholds at the current 2020 rate is important so that physicians will continue to participate in advanced APMs,” said Don Crane, APG President and CEO. “We know that APMs save money for the Medicare program, so freezing current thresholds will prevent physicians from leaving these value-based models and encourage others to join.”
The bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) established incentive payments to attract physicians toward value-based care and away from fee-for-service to help lower healthcare costs and improve quality of care. In today’s coalition letter, the groups say that the original thresholds set in MACRA in 2015 are too high. The current 2020 bonus incentives are based on physicians meeting a threshold of 50 percent of payments or 35 percent of patients in an advanced APM. In 2021, the threshold is scheduled to increase to 75 percent of payments or 50 percent of patients.
Read the full letter here.
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About America’s Physician Groups
America’s Physician Groups is a not-for-profit, mission-driven association organized to assist accountable physician groups to improve the quality and value of healthcare provided to patients. America’s Physician Groups represents and supports physician groups that assume responsibility for clinically integrated, comprehensive, and coordinated healthcare on behalf of our patients. In California, APG represents over 180 physician groups across the state. Visit us at www.apg.org.
Contact: Greg Phillips, APG Director of Communications, 202-770-1901, gphillips@apg.org
