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News Alert!

First Evaluation of Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative

Released

Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released promising findings from the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative. The annual report evaluated the program in its first year and found that it decreased hospital admissions by 2% and emergency department visits by 3%, contributing to the reduction of expenditures nearly enough to offset care management fees paid by CMS.

Here are some major findings from the report:

The primary sources of the savings were reduced rates of hospital admissions and emergency department visits.
The bulk of the savings was generated by patients in the highest-risk quartile, but favorable results were also seen in other patients.
Over 90 percent of practices successfully met all first-year transformation requirements.
The expenditure impact estimates differ across the seven regions.
Additional time and data are needed to assess impact on care quality.

While the results are preliminary, this is great news for the program, especially considering cost savings are frequently achieved in later years of implementation. Overall, the findings represent a positive step forward for the long-term success of advanced primary care, and for the many patients who will continue to receive improved quality and coordination of care through this initiative.

Read the entire evaluation and CMS Deputy Administrator for Innovation and Quality & Chief Medical Officer Dr. Patrick Conway's blog post.