The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) recently announced that the agency is revisiting programs and aligning payor efforts to further move the needle on the transition to value-based care. These statements come after CMMI pressed pause on various models for review, such as the Direct Contracting Model, and the Primary Care First Serious Illness Population Model, to evaluate ways to reduce overlap between various models and to condense trial programs.

In an address that took place this April at the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) 2021 Spring Conference, CMMI Director Elizabeth Fowler explained that CMMI intends to better align payer engagement and improve multi-payer involvement to enable providers to move away from fee-for-service processes and closer to value-based care. Health equity will be key to "every stage" of the process, she said, noting that CMMI intends to further leverage data on race and ethnicity to identify and meaningfully engage key communities and address health disparities. "The goal [of the Affordable Care Act] was to create a system that rewards better outcomes, better health, and lower costs, and we've made huge strides, but we have a long way to go."

ACC Advocacy and other leading health care organizations plan to continue working with the Center to lend insight on ongoing patient and clinician needs to improve the U.S. health care system and reduce health care costs. Read about ACC's health care principles and priorities here.

Keywords: ACC Advocacy, Medicaid, Fee-for-Service Plans, Medicare, Health Care Costs, Delivery of Health Care, Primary Health Care

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