November 1, 2022
Six major U.S. healthcare organizations launched a coalition to support federal policies that promote and reward value in healthcare delivery. The Alliance for Value-Based Patient Care is urging Congress to extend Medicare incentives for physicians, other clinicians, medical groups, and health systems to prioritize care that generate better outcomes for patients, while curbing skyrocketing growth in healthcare costs.
Medicare’s incentive for value-based care was part of the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, which passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2015. Without Congressional action, eligibility to earn the incentive will expire on December 31, 2022.
Members of the Alliance for Value-Based Patient Care are the American Medical Association, American Medical Group Association, America’s Physician Groups, Health Care Transformation Task Force, the National Association of ACOs and Premier, Inc.
If Congress fails to extend Medicare’s incentive for value-based care—a 5% bonus for providers participating in Advanced Alternative Payment Models under Medicare’s Quality Payment Program—the coalition members say a decade of progress on healthcare system improvements that directly benefit patients could come to an abrupt end.
“Patients and the healthcare system in the United States quite literally cannot afford to return to the days before Medicare incentivized healthcare providers for generating good results,” said Clifton Gaus, CEO of the National Association of ACOs. “Congress must continue the movement toward value-based care to boost quality and control costs. The best way to transform healthcare is for Congress to take action to support value-based care before the end of the year.”
Approximately 300,000 physicians rely on Medicare’s incentive for value-based care to measure and report progress on quality measures, closely coordinate care among multiple clinicians, and address patients’ social determinants of health in conjunction with their physical and behavioral health needs. One third of these physicians could drop out of value-based care models if the incentive is allowed to expire, according to projections from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Millions of patients benefit from value-based care, including more than 30 million who receive care from accountable care organizations, a popular type of advanced alternative payment model, according to the National Survey of ACOs.
Value-based care models have been shown to mitigate growth in healthcare costs. ACOs have generated more than $17 billion in gross savings. Coalition members say that extending the incentive for value-based care in Medicare will help sustain the program past 2028, when Medicare’s Trust Fund is expected to become insolvent.
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About the Alliance for Value-Based Patient Care
The Alliance for Value-Based Patient care is a national coalition dedicated to advancing policies that promote value and quality in U.S. healthcare. Learn more at https://valuebasedcare.org.
CONTACT: Sara Matthews, SMatthews@MessagePartnersPR.com, (281)-650-2961
