Central PA Medicine - Spring 2017 - 22

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Practice Management

The

Care Centered Collaborative
and MACRA
By JAAN SIDOROV, MD

PAMED stepped into the forefront of new
As result, participating Pennsylvania physicians
ways of improving care for Pennsylvania pa- will be recognized for quality. Pennsylvania patients
tients. To better reflect patient-centeredness, will be aided by a payment system that fosters
the subsidiary company, PMSCO, its Board greater quality and assures greater access to care.
of Directors and management team created a That's because evidence shows that physician-owned
Practice Options Initiative (POI) named the practices provide superb levels of care for their
"Care Centered Collaborative."
patients, but have struggled to document and be
compensated for them. As MACRA both recognizes
Job No.1 for the collaborative is to help Penn- and rewards physicians for this care, the additional
sylvania physicians engage in "MACRA."
financial support from Medicare will translate
into greater investment in local health care, which
The historic Medicare Access and CHIP Reau- means greater access for patients.
thorization Act (or MACRA for short) of 2015
consolidated a number of quality-improvement
While the collaborative is finalizing the details on
programs that had been previously established by MACRA, its board and the management team are
the federal Medicare program. Under MACRA, also hard at work developing other services that will
physicians are obliged to use a more centralized ultimately benefit patient care. Examples include
system to submit measures of health care quality the resourcing of insurance claims payment and
to Medicare, which will then be used to adjust appeals services, offering back-office options to
physician payment levels beginning in 2019.
improve various business functions, and increasing
access to a wider array of insurance services.
MACRA is different than the Affordable Care
Act and, thanks to significant bipartisan support in
The collaborative is also pursuing the creation
Congress, is destined to remain the law of the land. of clinically integrated networks ("CINs") that
can increase clinical efficiencies through the
The impact of MACRA cannot be underes- dissemination of best practices, leverage the role
timated. If physicians elect to not submit any of local physician leadership, enhance the role
quality data, their payment levels will be reduced of data to create actionable patient-care insights
by four percent. This will further impede their and promote healthcare teaming not only in the
ability to provide access to Pennsylvania patients, clinic but in the community We've met with a
and could drive some physicians out of business. number of physician-led organizations that have
Alternatively, physicians who participate in the already done important work in this area, and the
MACRA program will avoid any reduction in collaborative is dedicated to "doing what it takes"
their Medicare payments and, depending on the to help these organizations succeed.
level of data they submit, could obtain additional
levels of payment that could increase access to care Jaan Sidorov, MD, serves as CEO of the Care
and further support the provision of high quality Centered Collaborative.
care in the commonwealth.
The collaborative has established a relationship
with a MACRA service provider that can offer
turnkey access to MACRA reporting. That will
include favorable pricing for Pennsylvania Medical
Society members, tailored support services, and
the ability to benchmark the quality reporting to
national standards.

More information
is available at
www.patientccc.com
or at 866-441-2392

This article was reprinted with permission from Pennsylvania Physician magazine.
22 Spring 2017 Central PA Medicine

http://www.dauphincms.org http://www.patientccc.com

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