Three Republicans from the House sent a letter to CMS last week calling on the agency to end current and future Medicare reform initiatives and to "stop experimenting with Americans' health."
The letter was spearheaded by House Ways & Means Committee members Tom Price, MD, R-Ga., Charles Boustany Jr., MD, R-La., and Erik Paulsen, R-Minn., and signed by 179 members of the House.
"We're not talking about science experiments in a lab or a computer simulation," Rep. Price said in a statement. "We're talking about experiments involving real patients' lives. [Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation]'s mandatory demonstrations could potentially harm patients and providers because CMMI is making participation in the demonstrations mandatory, rather than voluntary, before we know how they will affect access to care, quality and outcomes. CMMI has overstepped its authority and there are real-life implications — both medical and constitutional. That's why we're demanding CMMI cease all current and future mandatory models."
CMMI models include bundled payment initiatives and accountable care organizations. The representatives argue the size and scope of such demonstrations make them wholesale changes, not pilot projects or tests. In the letter, they call on CMS, Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt and CMO Patrick Conway to limit the size and scope of CMMI initiatives, to seek approval from Congress if CMS wants to expand test models and to establish a more transparent communication process while developing new models of care.
The American Hospital Association also wrote in to CMS last week in support of the cardiac bundled payment model, a newly proposed CMMI initiative, but voiced concerns about the pace of reform.
"Hospitals strongly support CMS' push for adoption of alternative payment models and are working to help ensure these complex models work for patients," AHA Executive Vice President Tom Nickels wrote in the letter. "However, if the agency does not, in turn, support hospitals by recognizing the significant investments of time, effort and finances that these models require, neither we nor the agency will find success."
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