“Whatever may come, CMS Administrator Seema Verma is standing steadfast in her “tough-love” stances towards providers when it comes to ACO development. As Healthcare Informatics Associate Editor Heather Landi wrote on Monday, “During a webinar sponsored by the Accountable Care Learning Collaborative Monday morning, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Seema Verma reiterated the agency’s focus on pushing healthcare providers in accountable care organizations (ACOs) to take on two-sided risk while also addressing CMS’s commitment to try to remove barriers to value-based care…”
“I’m impossible not to contrast Verma’s statements about the Next Gen ACO program with how CMS characterized the proposal it released just three weeks ago, on August 9. On that date, as Managing Editor Rajiv Leventhal and Associate Editor Heather Landi reported, “The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing a new direction for ACOs (accountable care organizations) in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), with the goal to push these organizations into two-sided risk models…”
“And, Seema Verma has made numerous comments now in numerous speeches to numerous different healthcare groups, making it very clear that she is becoming impatient with the pace of change in U.S. healthcare, and is determined to do something about it—with the support of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar…”
“The big picture: pushing on several levels at once?”
“It seems clear that Azar and Verma—certainly, with the help of Donald Rucker, M.D…” Read the full article here.
Source: Seema Verma’s Big Picture: Tough Love, ACO Acceleration, Interoperability, and Consumer Empowerment? – By Mark Hagland, August 29, 2018. Healthcare Informatics.
