Year in Review: Value-Based Care and Alternative Payment Models

Dora Hughes, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer at the CMS Innovation Center, said the center’s 10-year anniversary was a good time to look both back and forward at how its models impact health equity. In the world of value-based care and alternative payment models, 2022 has seen a heightened focus on health equity. In March, Dora Hughes, M.D., M.P.H., chief medical officer at the CMS Innovation Center, said the Innovation Center’s 10-year anniversary was a good time to look both back and forward at how its models impact health equity and how the organization can do a better job of measuring the models’ impact. Speaking on a March 23 panel at the University of Michigan’s Center for Value-Based Insurance Design, Hughes said that at the 10-year anniversary of the CMS Innovation Center, it made sense to take a step back and think about what it has accomplished and what they had learned from the past 10 years, and where it wants to go to achieve a health system with equitable outcomes.

Medigy Insights

The CMS Innovation Center is working to advance health equity through the incorporation of equity into new and existing models, the recruitment of safety net providers, enhanced evaluation, and the collection of demographic and social determinant of health data. The ACO REACH model is focused on improving care for underserved populations, with a focus on primary care physicians and the use of pharmacist-led teams and nurse coordinators for care coordination and patient support.