April 18, 2025
Dr. Mehmet Oz
Administrator
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
7500 Security Boulevard
Baltimore, MD 21244
Dear Administrator Oz,
Congratulations on your new leadership role at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We look forward to working with you to advance policies that accelerate the adoption of accountable care to improve health care for all Americans.
Accountable for Health is a non-partisan, national advocacy and policy organization expanding the adoption of accountable care. Accountable care aims to improve health care experiences by encouraging care coordination, creating care teams that communicate with one another, and supporting individuals in their care journey with services that address their medical and non-medical needs.
We appreciated your recognition of the role of value-based care in controlling costs while promoting high-quality care delivery during your confirmation hearing. Accountable care will be central to combatting the chronic disease epidemic through prioritizing preventative care and addressing risk factors early – improving care experiences and outcomes for beneficiaries, while reducing unnecessary utilization and expenditures.i In 2023 alone, Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) programs – including the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and ACO REACHii – delivered more than $3.7 billion in savings to Medicare while significantly improving quality, including improved diabetes and blood pressure control and increased cancer screenings.iii
According to our data, in 2022, nearly half (45 percentiv) of Traditional Medicare beneficiaries were participating in an accountable care model. Under your leadership, CMS has the opportunity to expand opportunities for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries to enter accountable care relationships in which their health care providers are responsible for both their health care outcomes and costs. We ask that CMS prioritize:
- Announcing a commitment to accountable care and a bold timeline for movement to greater levels of accountability for health outcomes and cost;
- Greater stability and transparency in accountable care model design and contracting, including prioritizing firm plans for existing effective accountable care models;
- Harnessing data and technology to improve the consumer and provider experience; and
- Engaging beneficiaries in their care, including by empowering them with actionable information and tools.
We look forward to working with you to address remaining barriers to accountable care adoption and support CMS as it continues to advance the movement in the health care system toward accountable care that achieves better outcomes, improves care experiences, increases access and lowers costs. This includes model stability and continuity so that beneficiaries continue to receive the high-quality, innovative benefit design delivered through accountable care models; a strategy and vision from CMS which prioritizes two-sided risk arrangements; and ensuring all Medicare payments to providers flow through accountable care models by the end of the decade.
Please do not hesitate to reach out to me if Accountable for Health can be a resource to you. Once you are settled in, we would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the role of accountable care in improving beneficiaries’ care experiences and outcomes and strengthening CMS programs. I can be reached at mmcdermott@accountableforhealth.org or 202-487-1393.
Sincerely,
Mara McDermott
CEO
Accountable for Health
cc: Abe Sutton, CMS Innovation Center Director
ii CMS (November 2024), ACO REACH Model: Performance Year 2023 Financial and Quality Performance Results’ Highlights
iii CMS (October 2024), Medicare Shared Savings Program Continues to Deliver Meaningful Savings and High-Quality Health Care
iv Accountable for Health (September 2024), Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries in Accountable Care Models by State
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In a new Health Affairs Forefront piece published on October 7, Accountable for Health CEO Mara McDermott, HarmonyCares’ Will Robinson, and C-TAC’s Kris Smith explain how Medicare’s experience with skin substitutes shows the promise of accountable care and what still needs to happen to fully leverage ACOs as early fraud detectors.
Congratulations on your new leadership role at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). We look forward to working with you to Make America Healthy Again by advancing policies that accelerate the adoption of accountable care.
The letter calls for Congress to pass an end-of-year health care package that includes an extension of Medicare’s Advanced Alternative Payment Model (AAPM) incentive payments to ensure physicians and other health care providers have the resources needed to support beneficiaries’ continued access to quality care.
