Holding the health care system accountable for the cost, quality, and equity of care is an important way to further those goals while encouraging innovation among providers, plans, and localities. For more than a decade, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) — part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services — has tested approaches to holding various actors (e.g., providers, health plans, health care delivery systems) accountable. CMMI has had some success, but its methods have too often been diffuse, misaligned, and incomplete.
CMMI leadership has signaled plans to revisit its models and to reflect on evidence from more than a decade of innovation to identify what to discontinue, accelerate, or initiate. CMMI can address past challenges in its approaches and reimagine a future of greater shared accountability among stakeholders to improve quality, lower health care costs, and increase equity.
