Medicare Compliance & Reimbursement

CMS wants your help to develop and test major health care system improvements.

The feds have launched an ambitious demonstration centered on improving quality and modifying payment systems. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced on Sept. 9 that it's seeking proposals for a new five-year project called the Medicare Health Care Quality Demonstration.

The demonstration is open to providers who are willing to participate in identifying, developing, testing and disseminating "major and multifaceted improvements to health care systems at the area or regional level," CMS says. The agency plans to offer healthcare organizations financial support to adopt decision support tools, such as evidence-based guidelines and shared decision-making tools. Providers that want to submit a proposal to CMS for this demonstration, providers must show how their projects and strategies will achieve safety, effectiveness, patient-centeredness, efficiency, timeliness and equity. Physician groups, integrated delivery systems or regional coalitions of such groups or systems can propose payment methodologies to cover demonstration services and provide quality and efficiency incentives.

CMS will accept proposals in two groups. For CMS to consider your proposal in the first group, you must submit it by Jan. 30, 2006. For consideration in the second group, submit your letter of intent by Jan. 30, 2006 or your proposal application no later than Sept. 29, 2006.