CHRONIC Care Act Reintroduced in the Senate

On April 6, 2017, the Creating High-Quality Results and Outcomes Necessary to Improve Chronic (CHRONIC) Care Act of 2017 was reintroduced by the Senate Finance Committee’s Chronic Care Working Group. The bill was introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch and Ranking Member Ron Wyden, along with Johnny Isakson and Mark Warner, the co-chairs of the Committee’s Chronic Care Working Group. The bill is largely unchanged from the previous version, which was introduced in December 2016.  The CHRONIC Care Act is intended to improve the Medicare program through various policies that target traditional fee-for-service, Medicare Advantage, and Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). For example, it expands and extends the Independence at Home program, which allows seniors with multiple, complex, and expensive chronic conditions to receive specialized care at home from a team of healthcare providers. It is also expected to improve flexibility and predictability in the Medicare Advantage plan, to better serve those that are chronically ill through: (1) value-based insurance design, allowing MA plans in each state to tailor coordination and benefits to specific patient groups, in contrast to current law requiring uniform benefits; (2) a permanent expansion of special needs plans (SNPs); and (3) expanding supplemental benefits to better address the underlying causes of chronic illness. It will further establish a program that allows certain Accountable Care Orga...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs