BALTIMORE — Earlier today, CMS officially launched the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to study various ways of delivering care and paying providers that could be possible money-savers for the massive health care programs and, at the same time, improve quality.
Created under the Affordable Care Act, the new center is looking for input from stakeholders across the health care sector, including hospitals, doctors, consumers, payers, states, employers, advocates and federal agencies, to build its operations, according to CMS.
"The center will identify and test care models that provide beneficiaries with a seamless care experience, better health and lower costs," Richard Gilfillan, M.D., acting director for the new center, said in a release. "By working together with innovative and committed providers we can create a system that works better for everyone. We want to identify, validate and scale models that have been effective in achieving better outcomes and improving the quality of care, but may be relatively unknown."
CMS also announced several new initiatives to strengthen primary care and better coordinate care for patients, including tests of "health home" and "medical home" concepts:
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Eight states have been selected to participate in a demonstration project to evaluate the effectiveness of doctors and other health professionals across the care system working in a more integrated fashion and receiving more coordinated payment from Medicare, Medicaid, and private health plans. Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota will participate in the Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice Demonstration that will ultimately include up to approximately 1,200 medical homes serving up to one million Medicare beneficiaries.
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The Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Advanced Primary Care Practice Demonstration will test the effectiveness of doctors and other health professionals working in teams to treat low-income patients at community health centers. The demonstration will be conducted by the Innovation Center in up to 500 FQHCs and provide patient-centered, coordinated care to up to 195,000 people with Medicare.
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A new state plan option under which patients enrolled in Medicaid with at least two chronic conditions can designate a provider as a "health home" that would help coordinate treatments for the patient. States that implement this option will receive enhanced financial resources from the government to support "health homes" in their Medicaid programs.
CMS also announced upcoming demonstration projects to examine programs that integrate care for dual eligibles who receive both Medicare and Medicaid. The agency will award up to $1 million each to 15 state programs.
"Health care is often fragmented, causing confusion, waste and sometimes poor outcomes," said CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, M.D. "Primary care that is person-centered, coordinated and seamless — creating a 'health home' — is a foundation upon which a high-performing system that delivers health, not just care, needs to be built."
For more on CMS' new Innovation Center, see www.innovations.cms.gov.