From The Daily by Medical Society of the State of New York: Burwell Announces $840M In Grants To Improve Care Quality, Lower Costs. Politico Pro (10/23, Wheaton, Subscription Publication) reports that HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on Thursday asked family physicians for their help in lowering healthcare costs and improving quality “while offering $840 million in grants to help them figure out how to do that.” Much of her remarks to the American Academy of Family Physicians focused on the new primary care effort, the Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative, through which the grants “will support 150,000 clinicians over four years with incentives, tools and information as part of the ongoing effort to move away from volume-based care.” Burwell stated, “We want to partner with those who are working to improve the coordination of care — both inside and outside their offices.” Barbara McAneny, chair of the American Medical Association Board of Trustees, said in a statement that the AMA “has been urging the administration to assist physician practices in adopting new payment and delivery models.” She added, “We’re pleased that they have created a program that supports physician leadership.” The Hill (10/24, Viebeck) notes the Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative is meant to promote practices such as “better use of electronic health records, better coordination of care among providers and expanding ways patients can communicate with doctors, HHS said.” HHS Secretary Burwell said in a statement, “The administration is partnering with clinicians to find better ways to deliver care, pay providers and distribute information to improve the quality of care we receive and spend our nation’s dollars more wisely.” The AMA’s chairwoman of the Board of Trustees, Barbara L. McAneny, stated, “We strongly believe that practice transformation can lead to improvements in the quality of care for patients, control health care costs and enhance practice sustainability as physicians embrace innovative new models.” Congressional Quarterly (10/24, Young, Subscription Publication) reports that while other programs within the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation focus on practices within hospital and physician practices, the Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative “is designed to more intensely involve nurses, physicians’ assistants and pharmacists, as well as primary-care doctors, the agency said in a fact sheet.” Burwell said in a statement, “We want everyone who is willing– large, medium, and small practices – to be able to practice medicine with a focus on quality.” According to the Business Journals (10/24), “HHS officials think this initiative can prevent 5 million unnecessary hospital admissions over the next four years, and reduce health care costs by at least $1 billion.” Dr. Patrick Conway, deputy administrator for innovation and quality and chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said that through the new initiative, the CMS will “be a collaborative partner helping clinicians” to “spread best practices across the nation.” Modern Healthcare (10/23, Evans, Subscription Publication) reports that the four-year effort “is a gamble that sharing care-improvement experiences among medical groups, health systems and others will push the industry more rapidly toward more efficient models of care.” Practice Transformation Networks will receive most of the CMS funding, up to $670 million, and the Innovation Center expects it will award 35 grants ranging between $2 million and $50 million. NJBIZ (10/23) reports that applications for the grants “will be accepted starting Thursday, and HHS said it anticipates announcing awards in Spring/Summer 2015.” The Hill (10/24, Ferris) notes in another article that Burwell on Thursday also urged family physicians across the country to boost ACA sign-ups, less than a month before the open enrollment period begins. Speaking to the American Academy of Family Physicians, Burwell stated, “We hope you’ll encourage [your patients] to stay covered, and we hope you’ll encourage any uninsured patients to go ahead and take that important step and get covered.” Also covering the story are Fierce Healthcare (10/24), Health Data Management (10/24), Healthcare Informatics (10/24) and Healthcare IT News (10/24). #AAFP2014
Posted on: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 12:44:49 +0000
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