CMS: $1B available in second round of Health Care Innovation Awards
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced $1 billion in funding for round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards. Funding will support the evaluation of projects that test new payment and service delivery models to lower costs and improve care for Medicare, Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) beneficiaries, according to the agency.
CMS identified four areas of interest in the second round of funding:
- Models designed to rapidly reduce Medicare, Medicaid and/or CHIP costs in outpatient and/or post-acute settings.
- Models that improve care for specialized needs populations.
- Models that test approaches for specific providers to transform their financial and clinical models.
- Models that improve the health of populations geographically, clinically or by socioeconomic class through patient engagement, prevention, wellness and comprehensive care programs beyond the clinical setting.
“Organizations from the public and private sectors throughout the country are finding creative solutions to our healthcare system challenges and these awards will continue to stimulate these ideas,” Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a May 15 statement.
The agency is accepting letters of intent from June 1 to June 28, and applications from June 14 to August 15. Award recipients will be announced this winter.