APM Expansion and New PTAC Committee – MACRA Monday

This post is part of the MACRA Monday series of blog posts where we dive into the details of the MACRA Quality Payment Program.

Most of the general details about APMs was changed in the final rule (See our previous post about APMs and whether you should take part in an APM or MIPS within MACRA). However, if you want to dive into the details of APMs, then check out this CMS webinar and slides that dive into the APM program. One thing that didn’t change much yet is the types of programs that counted as possible advanced APMs:

  • Shared Savings Program (Tracks 2 and 3)
  • Next Generation ACO Model
  • Comprehensive End Stage Renal Disease Care Model (Two-Sided Risk Arrangements)
  • Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+)
  • Oncology Care Model (OCM) (two-sided risk track)

However, as CMS mentioned previously, their goal is to get more and more people involved in the APM program. As part of that effort, a number of other programs are likely to be eligible as an advanced APM in 2018:

  • Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) Payment Model (CEHRT)
  • Advancing Care Coordination through Episode Payment Models Track 1 (CEHRT)
  • ACO Track 1+
  • New Voluntary Bundled Payment Model
  • Vermont Medicare ACO Initiative (as part of the Vermont All-Payer ACO Model)

In fact, some of these might even be available in 2017. The MACRA final rule also created a new committee called the PTAC (Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee). This committee will accept suggestions on other programs that should be considered an advanced APM. Then, they make recommendations to the HHS secretary on which programs should be added as Advanced APMs.

All updates on programs that qualify as an Advanced APM will be available on the CMS Quality Payment Program (MACRA) website.

Be sure to check out all of our MACRA Monday blog posts where we dive into the details of the MACRA Quality Payment Program.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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