If your organization has missed an opportunity to participate in the voluntary Medicare Bundled Payments for Care Initiatives and/or the mandatory CJR program, CMS’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation has issued a proposed rule introducing three new mandatory Episode Payment Models (EPMs) and a Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive payment model intended to be tested with a broad scope of hospitals which may not have otherwise participated in innovative payment model testing.

In the proposed rule issued August 2, 2016, CMS introduced EPMs for Acute Myocardial infarction (AMI), Coronary Surgery Bypass Graft (CABG) and Surgical Hip/Femur Fracture Treatment- Excluding Lower Joint Replacement (SHFFT) and a Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive model to be tested for five performance years, beginning July 1, 2017 and continuing through December 31, 2021. CMS estimates Medicare savings of $170 million over the five-year test period.

These new EPMs were selected to compliment care episodes addressed in other voluntary BPCI models and the mandatory Comprehensive Joint Replacement program with different patient populations due to the clinical conditions and non-elective treatment nature of the episodes chosen. As the clinical characteristics of these EPMs include both planned and unplanned treatment needs and underlying chronic conditions, the EPMs will be tested over a broader and complementary array of hospitals and MSA regions, to further promote care redesign models that focus on coordination and alignment of care in a largely fragmented acute to post acute care spectrum. It is hoped that with testing these new EPMs and the Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive model with a broader scope of hospitals with aligned post-acute providers will promote the rapid development of evidence-based knowledge CMS is striving to obtain.

These AMI, CABG and SHFFT EPMs were selected due to the high volume of these procedures among beneficiaries with common chronic conditions, such as cardiovascular disease, which contribute to the episode and impact high readmission rates. With these EPMs, CMMI is furthering its goals of testing innovative payment models to reduce cost and improve care transition efficiencies and long term outcomes throughout the care continuum. The same quality measures applied to Comprehensive Joint Replacement will be applied to SHFFT. The Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive model is designed to encourage treatment, reduce barriers to high –value care and increase utilization of cardiac rehabilitation and intensive cardiac services which have been shown to improve long term outcomes, but appear to be underutilized. (For example, CMS estimates that 35% of AMI patients older than 50 receive cardiac rehabilitation services). The Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive payment will be made to the selected hospitals with AMI and CABG EPMs for cardiac rehabilitation services provided during the EPM as they are already engaging in managing such episodes.

The EPM episodes will begin with acute admission at an anchor hospital for the applicable MS-DRG for the EPM upon discharge, and continue for 90- day period post discharge. Similar to CJR , acute care hospitals bear the financial risk for AMI, CABG and SHFFT EPMS, which include the inpatient admission(s), all related Medicare Part A and B services, including hospital, post-acute and physician services within the 90-day period. Eligible beneficiaries admitted to the anchor hospital for the applicable EPM will automatically be included within the applicable EPM. Hospitals and providers will be paid under Medicare FFS and after the first performance year, calculation of the actual episode payments will be reconciled against an established historical EPM quality adjusted target. Hospitals will bear upside and downside risk for the episodes after performance year two. The Cardiac Rehabilitation incentive will be paid to AMI and CABG EPM hospitals at a per cardiac rehabilitation/ intensive cardiac rehabilitation service level based on threshold treatments provided per AMI/ CABG episode post discharge.

While complementing current BPCI and CRJ programs, CMS is addressing potential advantages and disadvantages to certain overlapping of programs, geographic regions (MSAs) and hospitals. For example, acute care hospitals participating in BPCI Models 2 and 4 for hip and femur procedures and for all three BPCI cardiac episodes (AMI, PCI and CABG) will not be included for selection for the new EPMs. SHFFT EPMs will be implemented in the same 67 geographic MSAs where the CJR model is currently implemented. AMI and CABG EPMs will be implemented together in 98 MSAs selected based on specific criteria to avoid overlap with other payment initiatives such as BPCI models and AMI/ CABG procedure volumes.

Hospitals and certain ACOs may share gains with other providers under the AMI, CABG and SHFFT models as EPM collaborators. Similar to other model programs, the adoption of certain waivers are also proposed, such as adopting waivers of the telehealth originating and geographic site requirements and allowing for in-home telehealth visits for the three EPMs; EPM-specific limits for post-discharge home nursing visits and the SNF 3-day stay waiver, and expanding the practitioners allowed to perform certain cardiac rehabilitation services. Hospitals’ aligning with post acute providers and programs to effectively manage their EPM patients’ post acute transition and treatment adherence and monitoring will be critical to the EPM program success.

The selected MSAs and hospitals will be announced with the publication of the final rule. CMS is requesting public comment on the proposed rule and on any alternatives considered, by October 3, 2016.