Physician Practice

AAFP proposes primary care APM

Physician Practice Insider, May 2, 2017

The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) submitted a proposal for a new physician-focused, primary-care based alternative payment model (APM), the association said in an April 24 statement. The proposal was created in response to the Physician-Focused Payment Model Technical Advisory Committee’s (PTAC) call for submissions.

The AAFP’s proposed APM, Advanced Primary Care (APC-APM), is designed to support comprehensive, coordinated patient-centered primary care, and to address longstanding reimbursement inequities that disproportionately impact primary care physician practices, according to the AAFP’s statement. The APC-APM would be based on four components:

  • Fee-for-service payments that cover only services not included in the global payment
  • Monthly prospective, population-based payments covering non-face-to-face patient services
  • Monthly prospective, risk-adjusted primary care global payments for direct patient care
  • Quarterly prospective, performance-based incentive payments related to patient experience, clinical quality, and utilization measures

Approximately 195,000 primary care physicians could participate in the proposed APM, according to the AAFP’s estimate. That number would include physicians practicing in family medicine, general internal medicine, general pediatric medicine, general practice, and geriatric medicine.

APMs submitted to PTAC are open for three weeks of public comment and are considered by a preliminary review team. Then, the proposed APMs are up for deliberation and voting at a public PTAC meeting. The comment period for the APC-APM closes May 18.

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