The American Gastroenterological Association recently penned a letter to CMS, commenting on a proposed rule that would expand advanced alternative payment model participation options to physicians in episode payment models.
Here's what you need to know:
1. AGA says that it is too difficult to assign financial accountability in gastrointestinal care to a single hospital, hospital outpatient department or ambulatory surgery center, since gastrointestinal care often requires coordinated efforts with non-GI providers.
2. While AGA encourages increased availability of advanced APMs, the association opposes mandatory condition-based or outpatient models. Instead, AGA encourages CMS to adopt voluntary condition-based and outpatient EPMs that would incentivize coordination of care.
3. AGA included examples of episode-based payment models for gastrointestinal care that the association had developed over the past few years; for example, colonoscopy bundled payment, gastroesophageal reflux disease episode payment and obesity bundled payment plans.