Health Law Advisor

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission ("MedPAC") met in Washington, DC, on October 6-7, 2016. The purpose of this and other public meetings of MedPAC is for the commissioners to review the issues and challenges facing the Medicare program and then make policy recommendations to Congress. MedPAC issues these recommendations in two annual reports, one in March and another in June. MedPAC's meetings can provide valuable insight into the state of Medicare, the direction of the program moving forward, and the content of MedPAC's next report to Congress.

As thought leaders in health ...

Epstein Becker Green's Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Senior Member of the Firm, and Tanya Vanderbilt Cramer, Of Counsel, will present "Accountable Care Organizations and Other Provider Risk Sharing Arrangements — a Legal and Regulatory Overview," a webinar hosted by Bloomberg BNA.

While the federal government has encouraged the growth of accountable care organizations (ACOs) through the Affordable Care Act, the regulation of ACOs and other provider risk sharing arrangements remains a patchwork of federal and state requirements that span many different areas of law. This ...

Epstein Becker Green and EBG Advisors, as part of the Thought Leaders in Population Health Speaker Series, will host a complimentary webinar on September 30, 2014 on emerging trends in value-based purchasing in health care. The next session will feature a former key official from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Gary Cohen, JD, who played a central role in the implementation of the Affordable Care Act over the past several years and is moderated by Lynn Shapiro Snyder, Senior Member, Epstein Becker Green.  The session, The Impact of the Affordable Care Act on ...

by René Y. Quashie and Lynn Shapiro Snyder

As the health care industry analyzes the recently released final rule and related guidance regarding the Medicare Shared Savings Program (“MSSP”) for accountable care organizations (“ACOs”), it is important for the industry to also pay attention to key deadlines related to initiatives being implemented by the Center for Medicare and Medicare Innovation (“CMMI” or “Innovation Center”) within the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”).

While the MSSP ACO initiative is a permanent Medicare program, CMMI ...

by Ross K. Friedberg, Shawn M. Gilman, Mark E. Lutes, David E. Matyas, René Y. Quashie, Serra J. Schlanger, Carrie Valiant, Dale C. Van Demark, and Lesley R. Yeung

On October 20, 2011, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("CMS") released its final rule ("Final Rule") implementing the voluntary Medicare Shared Savings Program ("Program") for accountable care organizations ("ACOs"). The Program was established by Section 3022 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Final Rule was released in conjunction with revised antitrust guidance from the Federal ...

by Patricia M. Wagner and Ross K. Friedberg

Among the criteria that the “Proposed Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy Regarding Accountable Care Organizations Participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program” (“Proposed Statement”) uses to evaluate an accountable care organization’s (“ACO’s”) risk of an antitrust challenge is the ACO applicant’s “market share” within each of its service lines. The market share is a measure of the share of services an ACO participant provides in its Primary Service Area (“PSA”) relative to other ...

by Patricia M. Wagner and Ross K. Friedberg

On April 19, 2011, the “Proposed Statement of Antitrust Enforcement Policy Regarding Accountable Care Organizations Participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program” (“Proposed Statement”) was published in the Federal Register. As noted in the Proposed Statement, the antitrust enforcement agencies (the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission issued the Proposed Statement in response to a perceived preference by potential accountable care organization (“ACO”) participants to ...

As the health care world awaits the Medicare Shared Savings Program regulations expected to be issued soon by CMS, below is a wish list for key attributes that I hope the regulations evidence:

1. Flexibility. 

 "Transforming health care everywhere starts with transforming it somewhere." I hope that CMS takes Atul Gawande's advice and avoids being too proscriptive in launching the Share Savings Program. To me, the biggest risk to the program is being deemed a failure for having gone down too narrow a path that turns out to be unsuccessful.

Useful approaches have been suggested for ...