Medicare Health Support ResourcesSection 721 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act (MMA) created the "Voluntary Chronic Care Improvement Program," now called Medicare Health Support (MHS), to improve the quality of care and lives of targeted chronically ill beneficiaries enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. DMAA believes Phase I of MHS will demonstrate the benefits—including financial and clinical outcomes, as well as patient and provider satisfaction—population health improvement programs can provide for chronically ill populations in Medicare. Phase I participating organizations—Medicare Health Support Organizations (MHSOs)—are being paid a monthly per-beneficiary fee for managing a population with congestive heart failure or complex diabetes, or both. Originally designed to require the MHSOs to achieve a net savings of 5 percent compared with a control group, this threshold was revised to budget neutrality at the start of 2008. The MHSOs also must show improvements in quality and beneficiary and provider satisfaction. The MHS program represents a fundamental shift in the way the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pays for health care. Traditionally, Medicare has paid and rewarded providers for the delivery of units of service. Through Medicare Health Support, CMS has embraced a population-based model that pays for pre-defined and measurable outcomes within a business framework that holds MHSOs accountable for achieving positive results.
DMAA has developed policy statements on various aspects of Medicare Health Support:
Key documents:
Links:Historical documents:
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