Free Webinar Gives Details About Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative

The AAFP and TransforMED are teaming up at 1 p.m. CST on Feb. 1 to offer family physicians a free webinar on the Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCI), a CMS-led multipayer initiative that will test primary care payment models and service delivery models via a collaboration among primary care health professionals and public and private health care payers.

Bruce Bagley, M.D., medical director of quality improvement for the AAFP and TransforMED, and Terry McGeeney, M.D., M.B.A., TransforMED president and CEO, will co-host the webinar, which will provide family physicians with more information about the CPCI and how it can provide a significant financial boost to their practices. The webinar will cover what the initiative means for primary care, program details and participation requirements. Plenty of time has been allotted for questions.

"Our goal with this webinar is to create awareness and motivation," said McGeeney. "This program is one of the biggest things to happen in family medicine in the past 15 to 20 years."

Bagley pointed out that the CPCI represents "a bold new payment model from CMS." He said the initiative likely would cause other entities to join in or offer similar payment models outside the CPCI program.

Understanding the CPCI framework will help guide physicians in their practice change efforts, even if they are not selected for this program," said Bagley.

CMS and its Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation announced the launch of the CPCI in September 2011. The CPCI will collaborate with commercial and state health insurance plans to support primary care practices that provide coordinated and seamless care to patients. The program will blend fee-for-service payments with a risk-adjusted per-patient, per-month care coordination fee that ranges from $8 to $40. Practices also have the opportunity to benefit from any shared savings.

The pilot program will encompass seven regions across the country and could involve as many as 70 primary care practices in each of those markets.

"The amount of money that will be paid to primary care practices through this initiative likely will be significant," said McGeeney.

The AAFP/TransforMED webinar will be archived for physicians unable to participate in the live event.