500 Primary Care Practices Announced for CMS Innovation Center Initiative

The CMS Innovation Center has selected five hundred primary care practices in seven geographic areas to participate in the Comprehensive Primary Care initiative. This represents over two thousand primary care doctors and nurse practitioners in seven markets across the country. NBCH has member coalitions in six of these seven geographic areas.

Under the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative, CMS will pay primary care practices a care management fee to support enhanced, coordinated services on behalf of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries. Simultaneously, participating commercial, state, and other federal insurance plans are also offering enhanced payment to primary care practices that are designed to support them in providing high-quality primary care on behalf of their members.

This four year public-private partnership is designed to test a model of improved access to quality health care at lower costs by aligning public and commercial insurance payment. The 500 practices were selected through a competitive application process and will start delivering enhanced health care services this fall.