Home Health & Hospice Week

Medicare’s newly proposed “Primary Care First” payment model should benefit your patients and the physicians who care for them — including hospice physicians.

“The Primary Cares Initiative offers upfront payment incentives to serve Medicare populations with complex medical and social needs,” notes the American Academy of Home Care Medicine, which says it “strongly supports” the strategy.

Many core principles of the “highly successful” Independence at Home (IAH) Demonstration are included in Primary Care First, AAHCM notes in a release. “Home care medicine providers and policymakers have learned much from IAH,” says Academy President Eric De Jonge.

Primary Care First includes a Seriously Ill Population (SIP) model, under which Medicare will “attribute” patients lacking a primary care practitioner to a SIP practice, CMS explains. “Payment amounts for SIP patients will … reflect the high need, high risk nature of the population as well as include an increase or decrease … based on quality,” the agency says.

Hospice relevance: “Clinicians enrolled in Medicare who typically provide hospice or palliative care services (e.g., those affiliated with a hospice, palliative care or similar organization) will be able to provide care for SIP patients either by participating as a practice in the Primary Care First general payment model option or by partnering with a Primary Care First practice participating in the general payment model option that includes these clinicians on their roster of participating practitioners,” CMS explains.