On September 20, 2017, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (“CMMI”) issued an informal Request for Information (“RFI”) seeking public feedback on “a new direction to promote patient-centered care and test market-driven reforms that empower beneficiaries as consumers, provide price transparency, increase choices and competition to drive quality, reduce costs, and improve outcomes.” CMMI’s RFI came a day after Seema Verma, administrator for CMS, announced in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal that CMS was looking to make changes to CMMI.

CMMI was established through the Affordable Care Act in 2010 to examine new ways of delivering health care and paying health care providers to improve the quality of care provided to individuals who receive Medicare, Medicaid, or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) benefits, all while reducing program expenditures.  CMMI works with stakeholders across the country, other Federal agencies, and CMS directly to test innovative payment and service delivery models. These payment and service delivery models are based on three core strategies: improving the way health care providers are paid, improving the way care is delivered, and increasing the availability of information to guide decision-making. While CMMI has had mixed reviews since its inception, CMS is now determining what CMMI models should and should not continue.

As a part of this initiative, CMMI “will carefully evaluate how models developed consistent with the new directions can complement what we are learning from the existing initiatives.” Specifically, CMMI notes that it is interested in testing models in the following eight areas:

• Increased participation in Advanced alternative payment models;
• Consumer-directed care and market-based innovation models;
• Physician specialty models;
• Prescription drug models;
• Medicare Advantage innovation models;
• State-based and local innovation, including Medicaid-focused models;
• Mental and behavioral health models; and
• Program integrity.

Additional information from CMMI on its new direction is available here. CMS is accepting comments through November 20, 2017.  The online submission form to provide comments can be found here.