OCM Evolving Best Practices: Lessons to Date

Last June, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that nearly 200 physician group practices and 17 health insurance companies had been selected to participate in the Oncology Care Model (OCM), the first oncology-specific alternative payment model (APM) pilot. (According to the latest information on the OCM website, participant numbers now stand at 190 practices and 16 payers.)  At about 7 months into this brave new world, participants are beginning to share some lesson learned. At last week’s Cancer Center Business Summit in Las Vegas, a panel discussion on The Oncology Care Model: Evolving Best Practices, shed light on some of the challenges participants have experienced to date with the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) model.

Panelist Diana Verrilli, Senior Vice President, Payer and Practice Management Solutions, McKesson Specialty Health, described the OCM as a “thoughtful and comprehensive model that is changing how people are being treated at our practices every day.” With 14 US Oncology practices—about 800 physicians—participating in the OCM, Verrilli shared three tangible outcomes that participants hope to see come out of the program: 1) a change in physician behavior, 2) improved use of clinical pathways, and 3) better patient outcomes, such as helping patients avoid hospitalizations.

OCM-related challenges that US Oncology practices have faced to date include:

1. Developing processes to easily identify patients on oral oncolytics.
2. Finding the resources and time required for practice transformation, for example, OCM participants are finding completion of the IOM care plan to be both time and staff intensive.
3. Developing the complex care partnerships and pooling arrangements necessary to succeed under the OCM, e.g., adequate physician compensation.
4. Creating processes and tools to needed to meet data submission and reporting requirements.

“If I could change one thing about the OCM,” Verrilli ended. “It would be to reduce the number of quality measures and the amount of documentation that is required.”

Fifty-five Flatiron practices across 20 states are also participating in the OCM. According to panelist Brenton Fargnoli, MD, Associate Medical Director Strategic Initiatives, Flatiron Health, challenges facing these practices relate to:

1. Care management. How do you identify eligible patients? Keep track of data? Inform patients about their care plans—engaging and educating patients in their care.
2. Program evaluation and reporting. How do you measure quality? Improve practice performance? Report to the OCM registry in the most cost-effective and efficient way possible?
3. Revenue cycle management. How do you optimize practice income in the OCM model?

To meet these challenges, Flatiron is working with its practices to develop turnkey solutions, such as:

1. Care management. Development of an e-process to do patient identification at point of care; Auto-generation of the IOM Care Plans in the EHR.
2. Program evaluation and reporting. Structured data capture in the EHR; Auto-generation of an OCM Quality Measures Dashboard and OCM Registry reporting requirements.
3. Revenue cycle management. Implementation of MEOS billing and collections tracking; Cost of care analytics.

When asked how the OCM could be improved, Dr. Fargnoli expressed sentiments similar to Verilli’s, “What’s working? Practices are very engaged and want to see the OCM model succeed. What’s not working as well—OCM rules and requirements are so complex that the majority of provider time is being spent on these documentation and reporting requirements.”

Finally, panelist Barbara McAneny, MD, Chief Executive Officer, New Mexico Oncology Hematology Consultants, shared concerns about the performance targets under the OCM, “If I could change one thing about the OCM, it would be the methodology by which the agency calculates targets so that practices can actually hit them. So how can CMS refine its targets? Give providers a year to collect the clinical data so that we can figure out why some patients are more expensive to treat than others. Using these data, we can work together to better refine OCM targets.”

For OCM participants interested in expanding the conversation, on Friday, March 31, 2017, ACCC is hosting the ACCC Oncology Care Model (OCM) Collaborative Workshop at the Renaissance Washington, DC, Downtown Hotel. Exclusively for OCM participants, the one-day event offers valuable, peer-to-peer learning with like-minded OCM professionals. The workshop will include snapshot presentations from OCM practices with innovative ideas and solutions for meeting OCM requirements, workgroups on hot topics, and a facilitated Q&A session. See registration details below.

The March 31, ACCC OCM Collaborative Workshop is an exclusive event for providers participating in the OCM. All attendees must pre-register for the OCM Collaborative Workshop through the CANCERSCAPE registration portal. To register, select the one-day OCM Workshop during registration checkout. Only those who are pre-registered for this workshop will be admitted. REGISTER TODAY.

Learn more about the ACCC OCM Collaborative here. This invitation-only platform provides a targeted discussion board and access to OCM-focused events. If your program is participating in the OCM and you have not received an invitation to join the ACCC OCM Collaborative, please fill out the form on the Collaborative Homepage to gain access to this peer-to-peer learning resource.