If the Obama Administration has its way, a permanent fix for Medicare’s sustainable growth rate physician payment formula would look a lot like the accountable care organizations (ACOs) now being tested around the country as part of Medicare’s shared savings program.
Some 250 ACOs now treat about 2 million Medicare beneficiaries, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) official Jonathan Blum
testified on July 10 before the Senate Finance Committee.
“As we work with the Congress, our efforts are focused on two main goals: (1) ensuring physician payments emphasize high-quality, high-value care and (2) using proven payment models to improve accountability for the care furnished to Medicare beneficiaries,” Blum told the panel.
In the short term at least, the administration would be willing to support a “period of payment stability” with the current fee-for-service payment rules in place “to allow time for the continued development of scalable, accountable payment models,” Blum said.
That brings the president in line with various SGR-reform bills in both the House and Senate, which propose a similar payment stability period of several years.
Still, Blum adds, physicians can expect CMS to continue its aggressive reform of physician payments at the regulatory level for the foreseeable future, as evidenced in the
recently released proposed 2014 Medicare physician fee schedule.
Among other changes, that rule would expand the number of quality measures physicians must report and extend the value-based payment modifier program to a greater number of providers.