CMS Grades 21 Payment Models

The nine models geared toward acute and specialty care produced better results than the 12 that focused on primary care and population health. When CMS released the dryly titled “Synthesis of Evaluation Results across 21 Medicare Models (2012-2020)” last year, the 49-page report landed without much fanfare or comment. The goal was to analyze data from 21 payment models that CMS’ Innovation Center has experimented with to “inform future model development.” Two years ago, the Innovation Center set out to pare its portfolio of payment models to concentrate on designs that were effective in reducing cost and improving quality while also addressing healthcare inequalities. The synthesis “was more of a ‘what did we learn’ and less of a ‘what can we do about it’ perspective,” explains David Muhlestein, Ph.D., J.D., chief strategy and chief research officer for Leavitt Partners, a healthcare consulting firm in Salt Lake City.