Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+): what are the updates for 2019?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently launched an Innovation Center that “supports the development and testing of innovative health care payment and service delivery models.” One of those innovations is Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+), a national advanced primary care medical home model. The CMS Innovation Center has published a number of updates and changes to the 2019 CPC+ program in its report, “CPC+ Payment and Attribution Methodologies for Program Year 2019.”

According to the Innovation Center, CPC+ includes two primary care practice tracks with incrementally advanced care delivery requirements and payment options to meet the diverse needs of primary care practices in the United States. CPC+ is a five-year model that began in January 2017 for 2017 Starters and will begin in January 2018 for 2018 Starters.

In addition to the information provided in the Innovation Center’s publication, a new track initiative that will reduce the reporting requirements for quality care is expected in 2019 as well. The new initiative should relieve independent physicians of many of the current reporting burdens they face in delivering value-based healthcare.

In 2019, CMS is providing the Care Management Fee (CMF) to CPC+ practices to support them in the expectation that CPC+ practices provide “wrap-around” primary care services. CMF is a non-visit-based fee that will be paid to practices in both tracks quarterly. The amount of the CMF is determined by (1) the number of beneficiaries attributed to a given practice per month, (2) the case mix of the attributed beneficiary population, and (3) the CPC+ track to which the practice belongs.

In its report on 2019 payment and attribution methodologies, the Innovation Center specifies that practice performance is measured against absolute performance thresholds. The minimum and maximum thresholds are determined from a reference population external to CPC+ participation. In turn, a practice’s own performance relative to these thresholds determines the incentive amount the practice retains. In addition, minimum and maximum performance goals are established using absolute thresholds that are the same for all practices. The performance goals are the same for both tracks and for all Starters.

CMS states that “In Program Year 2019, the minimum threshold is set to the 30th percentile of performance in the reference population for clinical quality and patient experience of care, and to the 50th percentile of performance in the reference population for utilization. Practices are not eligible to retain any of the PBIP (Performance-Based Incentive Payment) for the relevant measure if their performance score on an individual measure falls below this minimum threshold. This requirement ensures that practices are not rewarded for poor performance and encourages practices to place the highest priority on measures with very low scores to bring them above the minimum threshold.”