AAFP Prepares Members for Payment Initiative Demonstration

CMS recently announced details about the seven markets chosen to participate in the agency's Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCI). Participating practices in Arkansas, Colorado, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma and Oregon will receive payment based on a blended payment model that combines fee-for-service with a per-patient, per-month care coordination fee ranging from $8 to $40. Participating practices also have an opportunity to participate in shared savings from the project.

Now, physicians who live in one of the areas selected to participate in the initiative, as well any physician interested in learning more about the CPCI, can participate in a free webinar offered by the AAFP and TransforMED via the Delta-Exchange network.

The one-hour webinar, scheduled on May 10 at 1 p.m. CDT, is titled "CPCI Selected Markets: Preparing Your Practice for Participation," and registration is open.

Bruce Bagley, M.D., medical director of quality improvement for both the AAFP and TransforMED, will moderate the webinar. Bagley will give a brief background about the importance of the CPCI to the future of primary care in the United States. And he'll detail for physicians how their practices and patients stand to benefit from physicians' participation in the initiative.

Lastly, Bagley will lay out for physicians the steps they'll need to take to prepare their practices and their staff members for possible participation in the CPCI and how the AAFP and TransforMED can help in those efforts.

The CPCI first was announced in September 2011. The initiative is overseen by CMS' Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation.