Under a direct provider contracting (DPC) arrangement, Medicare could pay physicians or physician groups a monthly fee to deliver a specific set of services to beneficiaries, who would gain greater access to the physicians. The physicians would be accountable for those Medicare patients’ costs and care quality.
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CMS is looking at how to incorporate this concept into the Medicare ranks. On April 23, CMS issued a request for information (RFI) seeking input across a wide range of topics, including provider/state participation, beneficiary participation, payment, general model design, program integrity and beneficiary protection, and how such models would fit within the existing accountable care organization framework.
The RFI offered one possible vision on how a direct provider contracting model could work.
“Under a primary care–focused DPC model, CMS could enter into arrangements with primary care practices under which CMS would pay these participating practices a fixed per beneficiary per month (PBPM) payment to cover the primary care services the practice would be expected to furnish under the model, which may include office visits, certain office-based procedures, and other non–visit-based services covered under the physician fee schedule, and flexibility in how otherwise billable services are delivered,” the RFI states.
Physicians could also earn performance bonuses, depending on how the DPC is structured, through “performance-based incentives for total cost of care and quality.”
CMS noted it also “could test ways to reduce administrative burden though innovative changes to claims submission processes for services included in the PBPM payment under these models.”