CHAPEL HILL – UNC Senior Alliance, a pay-for-performance health care organization focusing on new tools and means of delivering healthcare, is the No. 1 such group among 34 nationally, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
This is the third year for the Next Generation Accountable Care Organization Model for Performance, a federal program created by the CMMS Innovation Center which provides resources and incentives to such groups to provide “closely coordinated care” with a “value-based payment system.”
CMMS notes “the Next Generation ACO Model offers an exciting opportunity in accountable care—one that sets predictable financial targets, enables providers and beneficiaries greater opportunities to coordinate care, and aims to attain the highest quality standards of care.” The goal is “to test whether strong financial incentives for ACOs, coupled with tools to support better patient engagement and care management, can improve health outcomes and lower expenditures for Original Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.” An objective is to move “toward paying providers based on the quality rather than the quantity of care they provide to patients.”
UNC Senior Alliance works with more than 3,000 doctors across the state who are affiliated with UNC Health Care. Its aim is to manage quality, costs and access to care.
UNC Senior Alliance
UNC Senior Alliance received a quality score of 98.64. This is the second year it has participated in the program. The initiaitve, launched in 2016, tests tools and patient engagement incentives that can improve health outcomes and lower expenditures for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries, UNC notes.
Mrk Gwynne
“These results speak to our decade long commitment to clinical quality, our infrastructure for quality improvement, our network of high-value providers, and the collaborative environment we have built around clinical quality,” said Mark Gwynne, president and executive medical director for UNC Senior Alliance. “We will continue to provide the right resources, for the right patients, in the right settings, and to provide our practices with the population management support needed to improve the quality of care our patients need and to make healthcare more affordable for our patients.”
