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NAACOS Advocacy |
ALLIANCE PARTNERS RESPOND TO MEDPAC ON PHYSICIAN PAYMENT
NAACOS and other stakeholders sent a letter to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) calling on the commission to continue supporting alternative payment model (APM) incentives as part of ongoing discussions to reform Medicare payments. This letter was in response to the commission’s March meeting on stabilizing and improving physician payment, and it also expresses support for the commission’s recent recommendation to replace Medicare’s current differential conversion factor with a payment update based on the Medicare Economic Index (MEI).
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• • • Welcome New Partners |
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• • •Congressional Updates |
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TRUMP LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES TAKE CENTER STAGE IN CAPITOL
Congressional Republicans are pushing forward on a budget reconciliation plan to advance President Trump’s agenda, which will include trillions of dollars in tax cuts paired with steep reductions in spending on mandatory health programs. Negotiations between House and Senate leaders have intensified as they work to reconcile differences in their budget resolutions. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) are aiming to pass a revised budget in the next two weeks that will allow lawmakers to officially begin drafting the tax and spending reductions portions of the legislation.
At the same time, leaders are facing a looming debt limit deadline. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects the nation could exceed its borrowing limit by August or September. While both Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Leader John Thune (R-SD) have shown support for including a debt limit increase in the reconciliation package, it could complicate the already tense process.
| TRUMP ADMINISTRATION HEALTH OFFICIALS UPDATES
The Senate confirmed Jay Bhattacharya as the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Martin Makary as Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The Senate Finance Committee recently approved the nomination of Mehmet Oz for Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). It is not yet clear if he will be confirmed before the Senate adjourns for the two-week Easter recess that begins on Friday, April 11.
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NAACOS Career Center: Post Today |
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Find Qualified Candidates
The NAACOS Career Center is an important source for career advancement within the community of accountable care organizations. This growing online resource offers job seekers access to professional opportunities and provides employers a place to advertise position openings. |
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Administration Updates |
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TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO RESTRUCTURE HEALTH AGENCIES
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is undergoing a major reorganization to reduce its budget by $1.8 billion annually and cut 10,000 jobs. The proposed changes, which are already drawing pushback from stakeholders and Democrats in Congress, are likely to be challenged in court in the coming weeks.
Key changes include:
Creating the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA) by merging agencies focused on maternal and child health, mental health, environmental health, and HIV/AIDS. Cutting 2,400 jobs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) while transferring emergency preparedness functions to the CDC. Establishing an Assistant Secretary for Enforcement to address fraud and waste in health programs. Merging the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) with the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) into a new Office of Strategy. Reducing staff across other HHS agencies, including 300 from CMS, 1,200 from NIH, and 3,500 from the FDA. Several, but not all, ACO coordinators were subject to this reduction in force. We will continue to monitor the impact to the MSSP.
| MSSP QUALITY REPORTING DEADLINE EXTENDED
CMS announced an extension to the Performance Year 2024 Quality Payment Program (QPP) reporting. The new deadline is April 14, 2025, at 8:00 pm ET.
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ACME Health Partners ACO (single entity ACO in Tennile, GA)
Englewood Health ACO, LLC (single entity ACO in Englewood, NJ) |
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• • •Education Opportunities |
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DON’T MISS EXTRA DAY OF LEARNING AT SPRING CONFERENCE
Leaders from ACOs and other VBC organizations will gather at the NAACOS Spring Conference on April 22-24 in Baltimore to cut through the noise and get straight to the industry trends that matter most. Hear directly from industry experts shaping the future of accountable care. Connect with more than 600 colleagues to explore how they’re navigating today’s challenges and opportunities. This is your chance to gain the critical insights needed to drive success in 2025 and beyond.
Pre-conference workshops will be held concurrently on Tuesday, April 22 from 1:00 – 5:00 pm ET. These workshops require separate registration from the main meeting. The three concurrent workshops will be:
From Data to Point-of-Care Decisions: Crafting a Scalable Data & Analytics Infrastructure that Delivers Actionable Insights to the Point-of-Care Driving Innovation in Value-Based Relationships through Specialty Care Engagement Balancing the Quality Tightrope
Registration is still open and will remain open until the conference. Can’t attend in person? Register for the live webcast. As always, the entire conference will be recorded. All participants, both in-person and virtual, will be able to view any sessions they missed live for six months following the conference.
| WEBINAR TODAY ON CONTRACTING WITH COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS
In collaboration with the Partnership to Align Social Care, NAACOS is hosting a webinar on sustainable approaches to financing partnerships between value-based care providers and community organizations. Join this informative webinar today, April 3 from 3:00-4:00 pm ET.
| NEW WEBINAR: BREAKING DOWN ACO DATA SILOS WITH AI
ACOs face significant challenges in unifying risk adjustment efforts due to fragmented provider networks, inconsistent documentation, and data silos across multiple electronic health record (EHR) systems. These obstacles limit risk capture, leading to inadequate reimbursement and increased compliance risk as ACOs take on greater financial accountability in value-based care. Join NAACOS partner Reveleer in a one-hour webinar to explore how AI-powered strategies can help ACOs standardize prospective risk adjustment and gap closure across complex systems for more accurate, compliant risk capture. Learning objectives include understanding how AI can help unify fragmented health information exchange (HIE) and EHR data for more complete patient risk profiles, learn how to standardize risk adjustment and gap closure processes by embedding them into provider workflows, and more. This free event will be held on April 9, 2025 from 2:00 – 3:00 PM ET. Register today!
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• • •What We’re Watching:
News About ACOs and Health Care |
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- A recent Health Affairs Forefront article explores leveraging patients’ insights to drive more effective value-based payment model design.
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