As part of the new healthcare law's policies to improve the quality of care available to people with Medicare and all Americans, on Wed Mar 14 CMS announced 23 additional participants in the Community-based Care Transitions Program (CCTP). These participants will join seven other community-based organizations already working with local hospitals and other healthcare and social service providers to support Medicare patients who are at high-risk of being readmitted to the hospital while transitioning from hospital stays to their homes, a nursing home, or other care setting.
CCTP is designed specifically to provide support for high-risk Medicare beneficiaries following a hospital discharge. These 23 sites will work with CMS and local hospitals to provide support for patients as they move from hospitals to new settings, including skilled nursing facilities and home. Community organizations will help these patients stay in contact with their doctors to ensure their questions are answered and they are taking medications they need to help them stay healthy. This announcement will support more than 126 local hospitals and help more than 223,000 Medicare beneficiaries in 19 states across the country. CCTP is part of the Partnership for Patients<http://www.healthcare.gov/compare/partnership-for-patients/index.html>, a public-private partnership aiming to cut preventable errors in hospitals by 40 percent and reduce preventable hospital readmissions by 20 percent over a three-year period. Achieving these goals has the potential to save up to 60,000 lives, prevent millions of injuries and unnecessary complications in patient care, and save up to $50 billion for Medicare over ten years. To date, more than 8,000 partners have pledged their commitment to the aims of the Partnership for Patients, including more than 3800 hospitals. As part of their two-year agreement with the CMS Innovation Center, each organization will be paid a flat fee for helping to coordinate patient care after a hospital stay for each Medicare beneficiary who is at high-risk for readmission to the hospital. The 23 sites will join the seven organizations announced in November 2011, bringing the total number of sites to 30. This is the second round of CCTP participants announced since the program was launched in April 2011. More information on the CCTP is available at http://www.CMS.gov/DemoProjectsEvalRpts/MD/itemdetail.asp?itemID=CMS1239313. More information about the work the Department of Health and Human Services is doing to improve care for Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP beneficiaries and, by extension, all Americans through the broader Partnership for Patients initiative is available at http://www.HealthCare.gov/PartnershipForPatients. The full text of this excerpted CMS press release (issued Wed Mar 14) can be found at http://www.CMS.gov/apps/media/press/release.asp?Counter=4302. ________________________________ It's Not too Late to Give and Get the Flu Vaccine. Take advantage of each office visit and protect your patients against the seasonal flu. Medicare will continue to pay for the seasonal flu vaccine and its administration for all Medicare beneficiaries through the entire flu season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also recommends that patients, healthcare workers and caregivers be vaccinated against the seasonal flu. Protect your patients. Protect your family. Protect yourself. Get the Flu Vaccine-Not the Flu. Remember - The flu vaccine plus its administration are covered Part B benefits. CMS has posted the 2011-2012 seasonal flu vaccine payment limits at http://www.CMS.gov/McrPartBDrugAvgSalesPrice/10_VaccinesPricing.asp. Note that the flu vaccine is NOT a Part D-covered drug. For more information on coverage and billing of the flu vaccine and its administration, as well as related educational provider resources, visit http://www.CMS.gov/MLNProducts/35_PreventiveServices.asp and http://www.cms.gov/immunizations. ________________________________ Note: If you have problems accessing any hyperlink in this message, please copy and paste the URL into your Internet browser. If you know someone who would like to subscribe to a Medicare Fee-For-Service (FFS) provider listserv, go to (http://www.cms.gov/prospmedicarefeesvcpmtgen/downloads/Provider_Listservs.pdf). If you would like to unsubscribe from a specific provider listserv, please go to (https://list.nih.gov/cgi-bin/wa.exe?INDEX) to unsubscribe or to leave the appropriate listserv. Please DO NOT respond to this email. This email is a service of CMS and routed through an electronic mail server to communicate Medicare policy and operational changes and/or updates. Responses to this email are not routed to CMS personnel. Inquiries may be sent by going to (http://www.cms.gov/ContactCMS). Thank you.
