AHA recommends focal points for next decade of Medicare and Medicaid innovation

The AHA Aug. 30 urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to maintain a focus on accountable and innovative health care over the next decade and beyond, providing the agency with several recommendations for meeting that goal to be implemented through CMS’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. AHA suggested that CMMI establish a Rural Design Center to focus on rural issues and models that may improve access to care, health outcomes, patients’ experience of care and affordability; consider the role hospitals play in historically marginalized communities, especially in times of disaster, and to ensure their viability is factored into current and future CMMI models; work with AHA to better understand the impact of capitation and other prepayment programs’ impact on primary care providers’ ability to deliver high-quality, lower-cost care to patients; and establish several new demonstration projects to test whether different benefit structures may improve access to care, health outcomes, patients’ experience of care and affordability.