CMS president testifies on payment and delivery system reform

Monday, February 29, 2016 03:14 PM

CMS President Mike Volz, MD, testified before the Colorado Commission on Affordable Health Care on Feb. 8, providing thoughts on behalf of the society on payment and delivery system reform.

He made the following points, among others:

• There is no one right way to structure payment reforms and experimentation should be encouraged.
• In addition to bundled payments, [other models] should be pursued like payment for high-value service, condition-based payments, warrantied payments, episode payments and condition-based payments.
• I constantly hear the frustration from doctor colleagues that one plan requires that they do things one way while another requires them to do it another way. When it comes to payment reform, the only way to harness the critical mass necessary for practices to change is through aligned all-payer approaches.
• It is important to support enhanced primary care reimbursement using value-based models; high performance primary care is the foundation upon which cost-effective, quality care rests.

Read his full testimony here.