In a recent report, CMS said that it was going to adopt a new community based healthcare program for testing. The purpose of the testing is to see how the screening of Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries will help improve healthcare system. It will also see whether this will help bring about any cost cutting in the industry.
The new type of screening is known as Accountable Health Communities (AHC) model. After introducing this model, CMS will closely observe how effectively it helps to reduce the gap between community services and clinical care.
They will observe the improvement for a period of five-year or throughout the duration of the present healthcare delivery system. The health related social needs of the patients would be the prime focus of AHC’s new model testing.
CMS, after studying many test results in the past, have come to realize that improved clinical community linkage has got the capacity to improve health benefits. It can also reduce the cost on healthcare system. Based on the study report, CMS has arrived at the conclusion that the increase in the risk of chronic conditions is intensified when we tend to ignore certain needs such as stable housing, food securities etc.
These health-related social needs are the sole factor that determines a person’s capacity to manage several of these conditions. When the healthcare cost rises above one’s capacity, people start dodging the healthcare facilities. This, in turn, would result in serious health problems.
CMS believes proper planning can help improve the situations. For this, a lot of change needs to be introduced in the existing healthcare system. First, there should be a connection between the community services and clinical services. When both these services are properly aligned, the clinical community collaboration will improve and this will reflect in the overall healthcare system.
CMS is planning to implement its progressive plans over a five-year timeframe. During this period, it will keep testing all the different options and alignment schemes. As of now, it has come up with three test approaches (three-track model), where each model will consist of interventions in varying degrees.
In addition to the aforementioned improvement plans, CMS is also thinking about 44 award cooperative agreements. According to the reports, these agreements would range between $1 million to $4.5 million. A CMS-designated awardee will monitor the process.
