The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) may consider creating a home health bundled payment model, according to the organization’s director Adam Boehler. Prior to heading up the CMMI, Boehler founded Landmark Health, which provides home-based medical care to chronically-ill patients and eschews the fee-for-service model, taking full financial risk. By doing so, Landmark cut hospital admissions among its patients by 40 percent and decreased mortality rates, he told an Alliance for Health Policy-sponsored event. Now, Boehler may implement this work on another level. “We did whatever it made sense to do to take care of the patient,” he added. Now, it is a “possibility” that the CMMI could create a home health-bundled payment, according to Boehler. He has suggested a non-traditional payment model would be vital to do work similar to Landmark’s through Medicare US-wide. Boehler, who would be keen to end “fee-for-service,” backs an approach based on accountability so Medicare pays for the right care. He indicated that CMMI will make a series of announcements over the next few months. It can be costly for doctors to visit patients at home, and Landmark paid its physicians nearly 50 percent above market price. In addition to these new initiatives, CMS also announced plans to expand access to telemedicine services in rural areas where there are fewer doctors. Boehler believes that non-physician healthcare employees – such as nurse practitioners and physician professionals, as well as social workers and paramedics – could fill this gap. While it may be an idea for now, Boehler stressed the administration is not “overly sensitive to the status quo.”
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) may consider creating a home health bundled payment model, according to the organization’s director Adam Boehler. Prior to heading up the CMMI, Boehler founded Landmark Health, which provides home-based medical care to chronically-ill patients and eschews the fee-for-service model, taking full financial risk. By doing so, Landmark cut hospital admissions among its patients by 40 percent and decreased mortality rates, he told an Alliance for Health Policy-sponsored event. “We did whatever it made sense to do to take care of the patient,” he added. Now, it is a “possibility” that the CMMI could create a home health-bundled payment, according to Boehler. He has suggested a non-traditional payment model would be vital to do work similar to Landmark’s through Medicare US-wide. Boehler, who would be keen to end “fee-for-service,” backs an approach based on accountability so Medicare pays for the right care. He indicated that CMMI will make a series of announcements over the next few months. It can be costly for doctors to visit patients at home, and Landmark paid its physicians nearly 50 percent above market price. In addition to these new initiatives, CMS also announced plans to expand access to telemedicine services in rural areas where there are fewer doctors. Boehler believes that non-physician healthcare employees – such as nurse practitioners and physician professionals, as well as social workers and paramedics – could fill this gap. While it may be an idea for now, Boehler stressed the administration is not “overly sensitive to the status quo.”