Jun 9 2011
The new deadline is Aug. 19. Meanwhile, in other policy-related news, the White House pushed back against study findings released earlier this week by McKinsey & Co. that as many as 30 percent of companies may stop offering health insurance to their employees and said the president's healthcare plan "will reduce costs overall."
Modern Healthcare: Pioneer ACO Deadlines Extended By CMS
Deadlines for provider groups looking to qualify under the recently announced CMS Pioneer Accountable Care Organization Model program were extended. The variation on the larger and generally unpopular proposed primary ACO program aims to draw organizations already experienced with shared savings and coordinated care approaches into the Medicare program fast, while encouraging other providers to follow later. The CMS announced June 7 that the deadline for applications was pushed back to Aug. 19 from July 18. Similarly, the deadline for applicants' nonbinding letters of intent was delayed to June 30 from June 10 (Daly, 6/8).
CQ HealthBeat: Insurance Industry Says ACOs Should Move Away From Fee-For-Service Model
The proposed Obama administration rule on accountable care organizations should "transition away" from an outdated fee-for-service model for Medicare and instead use models that focus on value, quality and better health outcomes, America's Health Insurance Plans says in comments submitted on the rule. In addition, AHIP says the Medicare model should learn from successful ACOs in the private sector and should be encouraged to use the tools that health plans can provide to change the delivery system (6/8).
The Hill: White House Blasts Health Care Reports As 'Starkly At Odds With History'
The White House Wednesday pushed back on a report that as many as 30 percent of companies will stop offering health insurance to their employees when President Obama's healthcare reform law goes into effect in 2014. White House press secretary Jay Carney said that there are a number of reports that contradict the study by McKinsey & Co., saying that the president's healthcare plan "will reduce costs overall" (Youngman, 6/8).
 This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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