Coalition voices support for bill to strengthen Medicare value-based payment models

Thirteen organizations representing health care providers, including the AHA, today voiced support for the Value in Health Care Act, legislation to strengthen Medicare’s value-based payment models and accountable care organizations.

“The reforms in this legislation will further strengthen ACOs and [alternative payment models] and ensure their continued success,” the organizations said in a letter to the bill’s sponsors, Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., Darin LaHood, R-Ill., and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash. “We are pleased that the bill provides appropriate shared savings rates, modifies risk adjustment methodologies, removes barriers to participation, ensures fair and accurate benchmarks, and provides educational and technical support for ACOs. The bill also makes important steps to reinforce the transition to value through extending and modifying Advanced APM bonuses and addressing aspects of APM overlap. These reforms will ensure that value-based care models continue to be viable for physician and hospital participants.”

The group said the policies in the bill are “more important than ever given the acute needs of our nation’s health care system as we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic,” noting that ACO and APM tools such as care coordination “have been key to managing the COVID-19 crisis.”