Dr Barbara McAneny on Crafting New APMs and Improving Partnerships Between Physicians and Payers

There needs to be a more trusting partnership between physicians and CMS and other payers that physicians want to deliver the best care to patients at a lower cost, said Barbara L. McAneny, MD, president of the AMA.

Transcript

How do you think the move to alternative payment models is working? How do you think it will continue to evolve?

One of the advantages of the [Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act] that we are working on—the Quality Payment Program—is that there’s a process to create alternative payment methodologies for physicians.

So, we are looking forward to working with CMS and with physicians all across the country and physicians in their organizations, their specialty societies, and their state societies, to come up with new payment models. And we are very hopeful that with this partnership with CMS that we will be able to try some new models. That what works for inflammatory bowel disease may not be the same model that works for diabetes or cancer or heart disease. So, we need to have as many smart people as possible across the country thinking about this and coming up with models that CMS can test to be able to change this payment structure.

The recognition that what CMS really wants from physicians is the accountability, so they can be assured that we are delivering the best care to the patient, the right care to that patient for those diseases in that community in those circumstances, and be aware that we are trying to do it in a way that conserves money. Patients are going broke out there. And we have to help them with that, as well.

We need to have that trusting partnership between the physicians and CMS and the other payers. Instead of the adversarial relationship that it’s been in the past.