The top takeaway from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) December Clinician Outreach Meeting focused on lessons learned from the Transforming Clinical Practices Initiative (TCPI), a practice transformation and quality improvement initiative of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI). During the call, the AUA was mentioned for our successful collaboration with the American College of Emergency Physicians’ on the 2017 AUA QI Summit on Challenges and Opportunities for Stewardship of Urological Imaging.
Lessons learned from TCPI
TCPI was designed to support more than 140,000 clinicians (both primary care and specialty care) who were not participating in a value-based payment arrangement, over a 4-year period in sharing, adapting, and further developing their comprehensive quality improvement strategies. It is one part of a nationwide strategy to strengthen the quality of patient care and spend health care dollars more wisely. TCPI was implemented using a strategy of establishing practice and professional association networks to support transformation. The Practice Transformation Networks (PTNs) are peer-based learning networks designed to coach, mentor, and assist clinicians in developing core competencies specific to practice transformation.
The panel shared examples of initiatives that were created to avoid unnecessary use of the hospitals and emergency departments. In addition, they implemented measures to reduce unnecessary imaging and admissions, for certain conditions, such as chest pain.
More information can be found here and here.
AUA role in TCPI
Dr. Arjun Venkatesh, an emergency medicine physician and co-Principal Investigator for the Emergency Quality Network (E-Qual), specifically cited the American College of Emergency Physicians’ successful collaboration with AUA on the 2017 AUA QI Summit on Challenges and Opportunities for Stewardship of Urological Imaging. The summit was centered on increasing appropriate use of advanced urologic imaging and reducing adverse events and associated costs. More information on this summit, including a toolkit, can be here.
Reminders
The new Medicare Card transition period is ending December 31, 2019.