CMS Makes COVID-Wrought Changes to Oncology Care Model
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spur huge changes throughout the health care system, CMS’s current and future alternative payment models have not been immune. In early June, the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) unveiled changes to the programs, including to the Oncology Care Model (OCM).
The changes that CMMI has implemented so far are the following:
✦The model has been extended for one year through June 2022.
✦OCM practices can forgo upside and downside risk for the performance periods impacted by the public health emergency.
✦OCM practices that remain on one- or two-sided risk can remove COVID-19 episodes from reconciliation for performance periods impacted by the public health emergency.
✦Both aggregate-level reporting of quality measures and beneficiary-level reporting of clinical and staging data are optional.
✦Cost and resource utilization reporting and practice transformation plan reporting in July/August are no longer required.
