AHA comments on PACE proposal for people under 55

The AHA generally supports advancing new models of care for younger populations that could benefit from the Programs of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly, Ashley Thompson, AHA senior vice president for policy analysis and development, told the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today, responding to a CMS request for information on the PACE Innovation Act of 2015. The law gave CMS new waiver authority to test PACE-like models for people under age 55. In the RFI, CMS proposes testing a new Person Centered Community Care (P3C) model for adults dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid who have disabilities that impair mobility and require a nursing home level of care. AHA recommended CMS increase flexibility to allow P3C PACE-like models to collaborate with community partners, both medical and non-medical; consider what quality metrics are used; and strengthen the risk-sharing protections, such as stop-loss measures, in the financing model.