Lead Letter to CMS Administrator and CMMI Director to Return to its Core Mission of Lowering Costs, Increasing Transparency and Improving Rural Health Care
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Congressman Vern Buchanan, Vice Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and Chair of the Health Subcommittee, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and Committee Republican members led a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) Director Abraham Sutton calling on CMMI to return to its core mission and partner with the public to develop health care payment models that save taxpayer dollars and improve patient health–particularly for those in underserved or rural communities.
The letter outlines Ways and Means Republican priorities for CMMI, the entity charged by Congress to explore new models of improving health care delivery: focus on payment models that save money, improve transparency and communication in changes to existing models, ensure solicitation of stakeholder feedback in the development of new models and renewed attention on improving rural health care.
Buchanan and his fellow Ways and Means Republicans outline specific concerns with CMMI’s history of pursuing expensive models with questionable returns and the center’s failure to focus on its statutory mandate to identify viable models that deliver better, more effective and more efficient care:
“We are concerned with the Center’s history of developing costly models that either fail to meet or are not on track to meet that standard which is rooted in statute. Furthermore, we strongly believe that prioritizing transparency and communication around changes to models is necessary for delivering stability and predictability to participants and will lead to more efficient model operations. We believe that with the right leadership, CMMI can produce models that promote value over volume, result in meaningful program savings, improve care for the most vulnerable beneficiaries living in rural and underserved communities, and better incorporate public input.”
In its first decade of existence, CMMI produced payment models that increased direct spending by $5.4 billion, the direct opposite of its statutory purpose. Moreover, under the Biden Administration, CMMI strayed from its Congressionally mandated mission, promoting instead a politically-motivated health equity agenda. In changing payment models, the Biden CMMI often did not consult or inform affected health care providers.
Read the full letter here.
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