Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network

As shared here in the Pub at the end of January (Value-Based Payment: The Rush Is On) HHS has set a goal of migrating 30% of all Medicare payments to alternative payment models by December of next year – and 50% by the end of 2018. Overall the goals of having all payments tied to quality or value are 85% and 90% during the same periods, respectively.

Commensurate with these initiatives CMS today announced the establishment of the Health Care Payment Learning Network, to provide a forum for public-private partnerships to help the U.S. health care payment system (both private and public) meet or exceed recently established Medicare goals for value-based payments and alternative payment models.”

The Network will perform the following functions:

Serve as a convening body to facilitate joint implementation of new models of payment and care delivery;
Identify areas of agreement around movement toward alternative payment models and define how best to report on these new payment models;
Collaborate to generate evidence, share approaches, and remove barriers;
Develop common approaches to core issues such as beneficiary attribution, financial models, benchmarking, quality and performance measurement, risk adjustment, and other topics raised for discussion; and
Create implementation guides for payers, purchasers, providers, and consumers.

CMS is asking for payers, providers, employers, purchasers, state partners, consumer groups, individual consumers, and others to join the network in order to participate in the discussion and debate on how to transition toward the aforementioned goals via alternative payment models. The Network is to be convened by an independent contractor that will help ensure it operates independently of HHS, CMS and other governmental entities while supporting the efforts of Network participants.

A Guiding Committee made of participants from the Network will be created to act as a clearinghouse of topics and ideas and to help prioritize discussion topics based upon the input they receive from Network participants. The frequency of meetings is to be determined but it is intended that most will be held virtually via teleconference and/or webinar. A kickoff event is being scheduled for Wednesday, March 25^th.

I have signed up as a network participant to follow the activities and information provided from the Network and will share more on this blog down the road.

Cheers,
  ~ Sparky