CMS Announces Potential Awardees

BALTIMORE — The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center has announced the first round of potential recipients of the Health Care Innovation Awards Round Two. The awards will fund up to $110 million in grants to programs that will deliver better health, improved care and lower costs to individuals usign Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

According to the CMS, round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards program focuses on four priority areas: rapidly reducing costs for patients with Medicare and Medicaid; improving care for populations with specialized needs; testing improved financial and clinical models for specific types of providers, including specialists; and linking clinical care delivery to preventive and population health. The 12 prospective recipients will test models in all four categories throughout 13 states, impacting a wide range of patient populations across the care continuum.

Ranging in value from an expected $2 million to roughly $18 million, the average grant will total $9 million and will be awarded over a three-year period. Additionally, all awardees will be monitored for measurable improvements in both savings generated and quality of patient care.

The list of 12 prospective recipients includes a University of Michigan project, focuses on improving abdominal surgery outcomes, and the University of California San Francisco’s Care Ecosystem program, which builds on the school’s existing dementia care research and services. An Avera Health project that spans Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota could also provide substantial funding to test the virtual wrapping of comprehensive, resident-centered geriatric care services around the long-term care population. Other potential awardees focused on reducing childhood dental disease, controlling primary and specialty care costs, improving child wellbeing through integrated care and preventing avoidable emergency department and inpatient use. Additional prospective recipients will be announced in the coming months.

Along with the Health Care Innovation Awards announcement, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) also made more than $700 million available as part of the State Innovation Model initiative. This initiative will help states design and test improvements to their public and private health care payment and delivery systems.

“As a former governor, I understand the real sense of urgency states and local communities feel to improve the health of their populations while also reducing health care costs, and it’s critical that the many elements of health care in each state — including Medicaid, public health, and workforce training — work together,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. “To help, HHS will continue to encourage and assist them in their efforts to transform health care.”