Reducing Acute Hospitalizations at High-Performing CPC+ Primary Care Practice Sites: Strategies, Activities, and Facilitators.

PURPOSE: Despite evidence suggesting that high-quality primary care can prevent unnecessary hospitalizations, many primary care practices face challenges in achieving this goal, and there is little guidance identifying effective strategies for reducing hospitalization rates. We aimed to understand how practices in the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program substantially reduced their acute hospitalization rate (AHR) over 2 years. METHODS: We used Bayesian analyses to identify the CPC+ practice sites having the highest probability of achieving a substantial reduction in the adjusted Medicare AHR between 2016 and 2018 (referred to here as AHR high performers). We then conducted telephone interviews with 64 respondents at 14 AHR high-performer sites and undertook within- and cross-case comparative analysis. RESULTS: The 14 AHR high performers experienced a 6% average decrease (range, 4% to 11%) in their Medicare AHR over the 2-year period. They credited various care delivery activities aligned with 3 strategies for reducing AHR: (1) improving and promoting prompt access to primary care, (2) identifying patients at high risk for hospitalization and addressing their needs with enhanced care management, and (3) expanding the breadth and depth of services offered at the practice site. They also identified facilitators of these strategies: enhanced payments through CPC+, prior primary care practice transformation experience, use of data to identify high-value activities for patient subgroups, teamwork, and organizational support for innovation. CONCLUSIONS: The AHR high performers observed that strengthening the local primary care infrastructure through practice-driven, targeted changes in access, care management, and comprehensiveness of care can meaningfully reduce acute hospitalizations. Other primary care practices taking on the challenging work of reducing hospitalizations can learn from CPC+ practices and may consider similar strategies, selecting activities that fit their context, personnel, patient population, and available resources.

How Accountable Care Organizations Use Population Segmentation to Care for High-Need, High-Cost Patients.

Issue: New payment and care delivery models such as accountable care organizations (ACOs) have prompted health care delivery systems to better meet the requirements of their high-need, high-cost (HNHC) patients. Goal: To explore how a group of mature ACOs are seeking to match patients with appropriate interventions by segmenting HNHC populations with similar needs into smaller subgroups. Methods: Semistructured telephone interviews with 34 leaders from 18 mature ACOs and 10 national experts knowledgeable about risk stratification and segmentation. Key Findings and Conclusions: ACOs use a range of approaches to segment their HNHC patients. Although there was no consistent set of subgroups for HNHC patients across ACOs, there were some common ones. Respondents noted that when primary care clinicians were engaged in refining segmentation approaches, there was an increase in both the clinical relevance of the results as well as the willingness of frontline providers to use them. Population segmentation results informed ACOs' understanding of program needs, for example, by helping them better understand what skill sets and staff were needed to deliver enhanced care management. Findings on how mature ACOs are segmenting their HNHC population can improve the future development of more systematic approaches.

Rural hospital transitional care program reduces Medicare spending.

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate impacts of a telephonic transitional care program on service use and spending for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries at a rural hospital. STUDY DESIGN: Observational cohort study. METHODS: Patients discharged from Atlantic General Hospital (AGH) with an AGH primary care provider were assigned a nurse care coordinator for 30 days. The nurse reviewed the patient's conditions, assessed needs for transition support, conducted weekly telephone calls (beginning 24-72 hours after discharge) to monitor adherence to treatment plans, and scheduled follow-up appointments. Using claims data, we evaluated impacts on service use and spending using a difference-in-differences design with a matched comparison group. RESULTS: The intervention reduced Medicare spending in the 6-month period after discharge by 30.8%, or $1333 per beneficiary per month (90% CI, -$2078 to -$589), which was partly driven by a 39.4% reduction in spending for inpatient claims (difference, -$729; 90% CI, -$1234 to -$225). There were no statistically significant changes in the 14-day ambulatory care follow-up rate, 30-day unplanned readmission rate, number of inpatient admissions, or number of emergency department visits, although this may be due to modest statistical power to detect effects. CONCLUSIONS: The estimated $5.4 million in savings from this intervention more than offset the costs of the $1.1 million funding for the award. Although other studies have found that care transitions programs can improve outcomes, this study was unique in the size of the impacts relative to the low-touch intervention and the location in a small rural healthcare system.

Provider Experiences with Chronic Care Management (CCM) Services and Fees: A Qualitative Research Study.

BACKGROUND: Support for ongoing care management and coordination between office visits for patients with multiple chronic conditions has been inadequate. In January 2015, Medicare introduced the Chronic Care Management (CCM) payment policy, which reimburses providers for CCM activities for Medicare beneficiaries occurring outside of office visits. OBJECTIVE: To explore the experiences, facilitators, and challenges of practices providing CCM services, and their implications going forward. DESIGN: Semi-structured telephone interviews from January to April 2016 with 71 respondents. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty billing and non-billing providers and practice staff knowledgeable about their practices' CCM services, and 11 professional society representatives. KEY RESULTS: Practice respondents noted that most patients expressed positive views of CCM services. Practice respondents also perceived several patient benefits, including improved adherence to treatment, access to care team members, satisfaction, care continuity, and care coordination. Facilitators of CCM provision included having an in-practice care manager, patient-centered medical home recognition, experience developing care plans, patient trust in their provider, and supplemental insurance to cover CCM copayments. Most billing practices reported few problems obtaining patients' consent for CCM, though providers felt that CMS could better facilitate consent by marketing CCM's goals to beneficiaries. Barriers reported by professional society representatives and by billing and non-billing providers included inadequacy of CCM payments to cover upfront investments for staffing, workflow modification, and time needed to manage complex patients. Other barriers included inadequate infrastructure for health information exchange with other providers and limited electronic health record capabilities for documenting and updating care plans. Practices owned by hospital systems and large medical groups faced greater bureaucracy in implementing CCM than did smaller, independent practices. CONCLUSIONS: Improving providers' experiences with and uptake of CCM will require addressing several challenges, including the upfront investment for CCM set-up and the time required to provide CCM to more complex patients.