CMS Announces $1 Billion Health Care Innovation Awards Initiative

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has released a Funding Opportunity Announcement for round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards. Under this announcement, CMS will spend up to $1 billion for awards and evaluation of projects from across the country that test new payment and service delivery models that will deliver better care and lower costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) enrollees.

The second round of the Health Care Innovation Awards will support public and private organizations in four defined areas that have a high likelihood of driving health care system transformation and delivering better outcomes. Specifically, in this second round, CMS is seeking proposals in the following categories:

• Models that are designed to rapidly reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and/or CHIP costs in outpatient and/or post-acute settings.
• Models that improve care for populations with specialized needs.
• Models that test approaches for specific types of providers to transform their financial and clinical models.
• Models that improve the health of populations – defined geographically (health of a community), clinically (health of those with specific diseases), or by socioeconomic class – through activities focused on engaging beneficiaries, prevention (for example, a diabetes prevention program or a hypertension prevention program), wellness, and comprehensive care that extend beyond the clinical service delivery setting.

In this round, CMS specifically seeks new payment models to support the service delivery models funded by this initiative. All applicants must submit, as part of their application, the design of a payment model that is consistent with the new service delivery model that they propose.

Interested parties of all types who have developed innovations that will drive significant improvement in population health, quality of care and total cost of care are welcome to apply. Eligible applicants include, but not limited to: provider groups, health systems, payers and other private sector organizations, faith-based organizations, states, local governments, public-private partnerships and for-profit organizations.

Key Dates and Deadlines
Letters of Intent to Apply: CMS will accept letters of intent beginning June 1 until June 28, 2013 3pm EDT.
Application: CMS will accept applications beginning June 14 until August 15, 2013 3pm EDT.

Visit the Innovation Center website for more details on how to apply for these awards!