CMS opens Direct Contracting alternative payment program applications

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) has announced that the Performance Year 1 (PY1) application portal for its Direct Contracting model (including the Professional and Global options) is open as of June 4. Applications for PY1 are due by July 6 at 11:59 PM ET. The start date for PY1 is April 1, 2021. There will be a second cohort of Direct Contracting Professional and Global options that starts on January 1, 2022. The application period for this second cohort will begin in the first quarter of 2021.  

The direct contracting program is a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services alternative payment model that includes capitated payments for meeting value-based benchmarks within Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service framework. The Professional option is lower risk for participating physicians (50% shared savings/losses), while the Global option is full risk (100% shared savings/losses).

More information and future updates are available through the CMS Direct Contracting website. You may send any questions or comments to DPC@cms.hhs.gov.

The Innovation Center also announced it’s making COVID-19-related adjustments to some of its other alternative payment models (APMs). For instance, the Innovation Center has decided to delay the start of the Performance Period for the Serious Illness component of the Primary Care First APM until April 1, 2021.

— Kent Moore, Senior Strategist for Physician Payment at the American Academy of Family Physicians