CMS grants $100M to assist docs to adopt payment system

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services hopes to spend $100 million over 5 years to give Medicare clinicians customized direct assistance, like training and education to acquire success under the Merit-based Incentive Payment System.

The funding is needed as part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015, or MACRA.

These funds will target minor practices of 15 or fewer clinicians, predominantly in rural places, health professional shortage places and medically underserved regions, with the aim of easing the transformation from fee-for-service to value and outcomes-based reimbursement.

“Doctors and healthcare contributors in small and rural practices are critical to our aim of building a health care system that works for everyone,” stated Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “Supporting local healthcare contributors with the resources and data essential for them to offer quality care is a top priority for this administration.”

CMS is finding partners to give the services to physicians, like quality improvement agencies, regional extension centers and other regional health collaborative agencies. Under CMS’ plan, there’ll be no cost to physicians for the services.

Participating agency would assist physicians to work through what they require to be successful, like which quality measures or EHR system would be most suitable for their practices. Clinicians also would get clinical practice improvement training, which would involve assessing new workflows and whether they should join an alternative payment model.

“Giving these tools to assist physicians and other clinicians in small practices navigate new programs is key to making certain they are capable to concentrate on what is most significant: the requirements of their patients,” stated B. Vindell Washington, MD, principal deputy national coordinator. “As with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT’s funding for Regional Extension Centers, this assistance will help healthcare contributors leverage health information technology to modify their practices and the care they deliver.”