CMS’s ‘Innovation Center’ May Be the Affordable Care Act’s Lasting Legacy, Particularly as It Works to Replace Fee-for-Service Payments with New Reimbursement Models
Clinical laboratories and pathology groups feel the impact of many of the Center’s demonstration projects that move healthcare toward value-based reimbursement
One perennial criticism of this nation’s healthcare system is that it is slow to innovate. Technologies and management principals widely adopted by many industries may take a decade or longer to gain acceptance by hospitals, physicians, and clinical laboratories.
To encourage faster adoption by useful technologies and innovations by providers, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has a section that is not well known. This part of the law, passed in 2010, created the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation.
The Innovation Center was included in the ACA legislation for the purpose of testing “innovative payment and service delivery models to reduce program expenditures … while preserving or enhancing the quality of care” for Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries.” (more…)
