How doctors are developing new payment models for their specialties

New regulations under the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) are on their way, and physicians will have a choice to participate in the new Merit-based Incentive Payment System or alternative payment models (APM). It’s important that physicians are involved and leading the way now in the design of APMs to ensure they work for both their patients and their practices. Learn how one physician got involved with his specialty society to develop new payment models. Building future payment models As a radiation oncologist in Seattle, Shilpen Patel, MD, saw opportunity in the APM option and began working with his specialty society, the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), early. “It’s interesting to figure out how to navigate this because we’re all learning together,” he said. Dr. Patel sits as vice-chair of the payment reform workgroup at ASTRO, which is comprised of 19 members who practice at freestanding community-based and academic medical centers. ASTRO is also represented in the AMA’s MACRA APM Workgroup. Dr. Patel presented his organization’s work to the AMA Council on Medical Service last November. “One of the things I like about our group is that it’s a bunch of working physicians who see patients every day, and we’re all kind of in the trenches,” Dr. Patel said. “We have a pretty wide variation in terms of different practices represented to make sure that this is going to work for everybody at the end of the day....
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news