News

Rural Providers Organized Under 23 Medicare ACOs Receive $46 Million AIM Funding From CMMI

I would like to share this news release which was released to the news media today.

Lynn Barr

Rural Providers Organized Under 23 Medicare ACOs Receive $46 Million AIM Funding From CMMI

Additional $31 million also provided by CMMI to prepare rural practices for value-based payments under new Practice Transformation Network

Nevada City, CA, January 12, 2016 — A pioneering group of rural physicians and hospital administrators came together in 2013 to begin the journey toward managing rural population health. Through innovation and collaboration, they sought to transform today’s rural healthcare delivery system into a world-class primary care system that provides professional satisfaction for clinicians, attracts consumers, and provides high-quality acute, post-acute and outpatient services that meet patients’ needs.

These rural thought-leaders joined forces to form the first National Rural ACO (NRACO) and create the NRACO Services Corporation (NSC), which has been supporting rural Medicare ACOs with training, data, analytics, patient satisfaction surveys, and evidence-based medicine programs since 2014. In 2015, NSC organized more than 6,000 providers in 159 rural health systems into 23 Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs, and obtained $46 million in ACO Investment Model funding to support their ACO operations and local care coordination programs. This group includes 55 rural PPS hospitals, 92 Critical Access Hospitals, 168 Rural Health Clinics, and 39 rural FQHCs serving more than 500,000 Medicare patients.

Working with other key stakeholders like the National Rural Health Association and the National Rural Health Resource Center, the rural hospital CEOs also started the non-profit National Rural Accountable Care Consortium. The Consortium will assist hundreds of rural health systems in their journey toward accountable care, funded by a $31 million cooperative agreement award from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI).

To date, the majority of National Rural ACO participants have demonstrated reductions in per capita spending while improving quality and patient satisfaction. Unexpectedly, this has also resulted in financially strengthening the majority of the participating rural health systems. Participating hospital CFOs are queried monthly on the financial status of their organizations, and none have reported negative effects of being associated with accountable care, while most have described increased revenue and improved staff satisfaction.

According to NRACO founding member Tim Putnam, CEO of Margaret Mary Health in Batesville, Indiana, “there will be significant opportunities to strengthen rural health systems by becoming an ACO or participating in a CMMI innovation model in the next 1-2 years, but providers must prepare.” Co-founder Melanie Van Winkle, CFO of Mammoth Hospital in Mammoth Lakes, California agrees, saying “this is the reason we exist, to take care of the community. The ACO helps us focus on our mission.” Steve Barnett, CEO of McKenzie Health in Sandusky, Michigan adds, “once you begin giving this type of care, you’ll never go back. We are very grateful for the support we have received from CMS, CMMI, MedPAC, and the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. We wouldn’t be able to organize rural providers under this model without their help.”

Today, rural providers can get all of the support they need to be ready for value-based payments through the Consortium’s Practice Transformation Network, fully funded by CMMI. Medical office staff will be trained in population health management, including care coordination, quality improvement, annual wellness visits, and patient satisfaction, and can begin billing for these professional services.

Spaces are still available to join the Consortium’s Practice Transformation Network. In order to enroll in this federally-funded program that provides a population health infrastructure to rural practices at no cost, go to http://www.nationalruralaco.com/ApplyNow.

Contact: Lynn Barr, Chief Transformation Officer

916-500-4777

email: admin@nationalruralaco.com

January 12, 2016 CMS, Healthcare Grants and Funding, News, Value-Based Payment Read more >

Announcing Our New ACOs: 30 Rural Health Systems Participating In Six ACOs In Nine States In 2015

This is a proud day for the National Rural ACO.  Today, we issued a news release about our new ACOs.  Read on and you’ll see why we are so excited.

The National Rural ACO announced today it has successfully formed five additional ACOs in 2015 for rural providers following in the steps of the first ACO started in 2014. Using the organization’s unique collaborative model, fifty-two entities, including 28 rural and critical access hospitals, 42 rural health clinics, 12 federally qualified health centers and 9 private physician practices in thirty rural health systems were able to afford and qualify for the Medicare Shared Savings Program. More than 65,000 attributed Medicare beneficiaries from the states of Texas, California, Washington, Iowa, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon, Illinois and Michigan are now benefitting from the program under the care of 1,300 clinicians.

Our newest ACOs are:

  • National Rural ACO
  • Reid ACO, Suburban Health ACO
  • American Rural ACO
  • Northwest Rural ACO
  • National Rural ACO II

In almost all cases, the rural hospital sponsored the program and invited local providers to join at no charge. Although annual revenue for the hospitals ranged from $5 million to $758 million per year, and they all included employed or contracted physicians, only one applicant had enough beneficiaries to form its own ACO. All of the others joined forces to achieve the minimum number of beneficiaries and to reduce the cost of participation in proportion to what rural providers can expect to earn from the program.

The National Rural ACO provides comprehensive services including claims data access and analysis, evidence-based medicine leadership, care coordination coaching and the governance, legal and compliance services needed to succeed.

“The National Rural ACO’s unique model of collaboration is the first of its kind to enable rural providers to receive higher reimbursement for improving the care they deliver,” said Tim Putnam, CEO of Margaret Mary Hospital and chair of the board for the first National Rural ACO. “We can access the same type of powerful data, waivers and programs that urban ACOs can for about the same cost as it would be to hire one person to figure out how to get into the program.”

Please contact us if you would like more information about our new ACOs.

 

January 7, 2015 Accountable Care Organization, Care Coordination, CMS, Healthcare Grants and Funding, News Read more >