As the coronavirus has dramatically altered your sales team’s plans for 2020, it also has affected plans for your customers, including accountable care organizations (ACOs). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this summer that ACOs would get a bit of a reprieve as providers face declining revenue from fewer elective procedures and higher expenses from managing COVID-19 patient care.

These changes relate to CMS’s glide path within the “Pathways to Success” program, unveiled in 2018 to encourage providers to transition to two-sided risk models. Although CMS had hoped to move more Medicare ACOs to two-sided models next year, it is allowing these ACOs (which would normally be required to increase their financial risk) to maintain their current risk level for 2021. This means they will not automatically advance to the next risk level on the glide path.

CMS also changed how it measures losses for Medicare ACOs (and providers in other value-based payment models) during the public health crisis. Additionally, CMS has pushed back the start dates for some of its newer value-based models (like the Direct Contracting and Primary Care First Models) that your customers might be planning to enter down the road.

ACOs: Important Customers For Pharma And Device Sales Teams

At the start of 2020, 517 ACOs serving more than 11 million Medicare patients participated in the Medicare Shared Savings program, according to CMS. How the pandemic will affect the sustainability of these ACOs remains to be seen. But with these changes, CMS aims to ease the burden on ACOs, which are important customers for your organization.

ACO And Value-Based Selling Training For Pharma And Medical Device Reps

As part of CMR Institute’s continual review process, we recently updated our ACO and value-based care modules to reflect these changes. The rules change quickly in our industry, and we’ll continue to keep you up to date on the most important ACO news so you can tailor your value-based selling messages to best engage your customers. 

Reach out to us at (800) 328-2615 or at solutions@cmrinstitute.org to learn how you can leverage these timely modules – and others – to create an impactful learning program for your team. More than 93% of learners at CMR Institute rate our resources as impactful to their ability to establish credible relationships with customers. Learn how we help our customers get those results and reach out today.

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