Medicare Advantage Plans as Laboratory for Best Practices

In announcing the 2012 Chronic Care Improvement Program and  Quality Improvement Projects for Medicare Advantage plans, CMS is going back to the future. 

When these quality improvement programs were begun over a decade ago, CMS established national projects on priority areas for all MA plans.  CMS is returning to a national project for 2012 and will focus on decreasing cardiovascular disease.  The initial experience with national projects was extremely positive, with most plans reporting interventions that resulted in measurable improvement. 

The 2012 projects recognize the evolution of the quality improvement field and now the reports will be standardized with reduced burden to MA plans.  Because the reports will be consistent, comparisons can be made across plans.  CMS is recognizing that MA plans offer a laboratory for best practices and expects that successes can be shared among all plans, thus transferring knowledge and allowing successful projects to be replicated.