Calling on Congress: Lawmakers urged to support a transition to value-based care

A dozen leading health care organizations in the United States are asking lawmakers to keep momentum moving toward value-based care in the new Congress.

In a letter sent this week, the groups — including the American Medical Association, the National Association of ACOs, Health Care Transformation Task Force and the National Rural Health Association — outline legislative priorities they say will improve adoption of value-based care models. Such models, they add, have been proven to provide better patient care by encouraging physicians and other clinicians to coordinate care across settings and be more accountable to patient outcomes.

Congress in recent years has sought to speed the transition to value-based care, which ties payments for care delivery to the quality of care provided, by encouraging physicians and other clinicians to transition to alternative payment models (APMs), primarily through the bipartisan Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA). While roughly 30% of Medicare clinicians are participating in risk-based payment models, the rate of uptake remains below original projections, according to the letter, which was addressed to chairs and ranking members of the Senate Committee on Finance, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the House Committee on Ways and Means.