Health Tech Happy Hour

The CMS ACCESS Model Update and Payment Rates

The episode breaks down CMS’s new ACCESS Model, which replaces fee‑for‑service chronic care payments with a per‑beneficiary Outcome‑Aligned Payment (OAP) that is partly withheld until specific clinical and patient‑reported outcomes are met. It explains the four clinical tracks—early and advanced cardio‑kidney‑metabolic, musculoskeletal, and behavioral health—detailing their outcome measures, payment tiers, and reporting timelines. The discussion highlights the model’s financial architecture, including the 50% payment hold, substitute‑spend adjustments, and discounts for overlapping track enrollment, emphasizing that payments are modest and geared toward software‑driven care coordination rather than hardware‑heavy remote monitoring. Finally, the hosts explore the market implications, noting that the standardized G‑codes and FHIR APIs invite broader payer adoption and signal a shift toward outcome‑conditioned, capitated chronic disease contracts.