Oregon – Medical Homes
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program
Chapter 595 of the 2009 Oregon Laws established the Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program within the Office for Oregon Health Policy and Research (OHPR). The law required OHPR to:
- Define core attributes of the patient centered primary care home;
- Establish a simple and uniform process to identify patient centered primary care homes that meet the core attributes;
- Develop uniform quality measures (including acute-care hospital and ambulatory measures) that build from nationally-accepted measures and allow for standard measurement of performance;
- Develop policies that encourage the retention of, and the growth in the numbers of, primary care providers.
Chapter 602 of the 2011 Oregon Laws, creating the Oregon Integrated and Coordinated Health Care Delivery System, requires Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) deliver care to medical assistance beneficiaries and dual eligibles. This law requires the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to establish standards for using PCPCHs within CCOs and requires CCOs to implement PCPCHs to the extent possible. Standards may require the use of FQHCs, rural health clinics, school-based health clinics and other safety net providers that qualify as PCPCHs.
Oregon’s first wave of Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs) launched August 1, 2012. The state plans a staggered roll out of CCOs; 16 are currently active. Learn more about CCOs on the Oregon page of NASHP’s State Accountable Care Activity Map.
Federal Support:
- Oregon is one of six states selected in February 2013 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) to receive a State Innovation Model (SIM) Model Testing Award. Oregon received $45 million to implement and test its State Health Care Innovation Plan, which builds on the state’s CCO and PCPCH programs.
- Oregon is one of seven markets participating in CMS’s Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCi). In this multi-payer initiative, Medicare is collaborating with public and private insurers in the selected states or regions with the goal of strengthening primary care. In Oregon, CPCi launched in November 2012, bringing together seven payers, as well as 67 participating primary care practices with 552 providers across the state.
- On March 13, 2012, CMS approved a Section 2703 health home state plan amendment for Medicaid enrollees with chronic conditions that builds upon the state’s PCPCH program. It is through this state plan amendment that Oregon Health Authority is making payments to practices participating in its PCPCH Program. To learn more about Section 2703 Health Homes, visit the CMS Health Homes webpage.
- Oregon is also participating in the Tri-State Child Health Improvement Consortium (T-CHIC), a CHIPRA Quality Demonstration Project funded by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), in collaboration with Alaska and West Virginia.
Last Updated: April 2014
| Forming Partnerships |
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program: Chapter 595 of the 2009 Oregon Laws created a 15-member advisory committee and required a diverse constituency (e.g., payers, practices, third-party administrators) guided by public input. In fact, the Director of the Oregon Health Authority convened two advisory committees: a Standards Advisory Committee and the Pediatric Standards Advisory Committee.
OHA has also partnered with the Northwest Health Foundation (NWHF) to convene the NWHF PCPCH Task Force. The task force, made up of clinicians (both primary care and mental health), patients, public health experts, and healthcare delivery technical experts, developed recommendations and action steps to support broad implementation of Patient-Centered Primary Care Homes (PCPCH) in the state.
|
| Defining & Recognizing a Medical Home |
Definition:
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program: Chapter 590 of the 2009 Oregon Laws statutorily defines “primary care home” as a delivery system that promote the minimum elements:
Recognition:
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Programand ACA Section 2703 Health Homes: The Standards Advisory Committee enumerated the core attributes and standards (standards in parenthesis) of a PCPCH as follows:
See the full report for more information.
Like NCQA, Oregon uses a three tiered approach to provide incentives for practice transformation, but the state developed criteria within each tier differ from NCQA. Oregon will accept NQCA-recognized practices at the NCQA level provided that the practice contractually attests to NCQA recognition and submits additional information on specific areas where the two recognition models diverge. See the 2014 Technical Specifications and Reporting Guidefor more information.
Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCi): Practices were selected for participation in CMS’s Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative through a competitive application process. Under CPCi, practices are not required to attain formal PCMH recognition; however, formal PCMH recognition through NCQA, AAHCC, the Joint Commissioner, URAC, or a state-based recognition program was viewed favorably in practice selection. Additional criteria included:
Participation in practice transformation programs through organizations like quality improvement organizations, RECs, or learning collaboratives.
|
| Aligning Reimbursement & Purchasing |
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Programand ACA Section 2703 Health Homes: Chapter 595 of the 2009 Oregon Laws authorized Medicaid reimbursement for Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) services. The law also authorized reimbursement for interpretive services provided to medical assistance beneficiaries if such services qualified for federal financial participation.
With approval of Oregon’s state plan amendment to implement Section 2703 Health Homes for Medicaid enrollees with chronic health conditions, recognized PCPCH health homes will receive per-member per-month payments of $10, $15, or $24 for health home enrollees, provided that the health home provides a core health home service for that enrollee at least once per quarter. Payment amounts vary based on PCPCH tier.
A learning collaborative created by the law was charged with coordinating efforts to develop and test methods to align financial incentives to support PCPCHs. Chapter 595 also provided Parker antitrust immunity to public payers, private health carriers, third party purchasers and providers, allowing collaboration to identify appropriate reimbursement methods to align incentives in support of patient centered primary care homes.
Chapter 590 of the Acts of 2009 required that, if feasible, the PCPCH reimbursement system include:
Chapter 590 also granted the Department of Human Services authority to develop additional incentive payments to transform the current primary care delivery system and improve the population’s health outcomes, such as:
Oregon plans to reimburse providers for currently care coordination services that were previously non‐reimbursable. The Oregon Health Policy Board has directed the Oregon Health Authority to pursue innovative payment methodologies. Such innovative payment methodologies must:
If an MCO or carrier does not pursue an innovative payment arrangement, a specific additional payment is made to practices meeting PCPCH criteria. This payment corresponds to the PCPCH Tier for which a practice qualifies (Tier 3 > Tier 2 > Tier 1). When developing the payment rate, the MCO and/or carrier must consider the costs practices incur for meeting the PCPCH criteria, including, but not limited to:
Comprehensive Primary Care Initiative (CPCi): This four-year multi-payer initiative, launched in November 2012, includes seven payers in the Oregon market: Medicare, Oregon Health Authority, CareOregon, Providence Health Plans, Regence BlueCross BlueShield, Teamsters Multi-Employer Taft Hartley Funds, and Tuality Health Alliance.
Medicare pays selected practices a per-beneficiary per-month (PBPM) risk-adjusted care management fee, which ranges from $8 to $40. CMS has indicated that it expects care management fees to average $20 PBPM during the first two years of the initiative. In Years 3 and 4, care management fees will average $15 PBPM. Medicare will also introduce a shared savings component beginning in Year 2, calculated at the market level.
The CPCi solicitation for payers indicates that participating payers (non-Medicare) are expected to follow a similar framework, paying per-member per-month (PMPM) care management fees to participating practices on top of fee-for-service and incorporating a shared savings component. Payment amounts will be negotiated individually with participating practices to comply with anti-trust laws.
|
| Supporting Practices |
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program:Chapter 595 of the 2009 Oregon Laws required OHPR to establish a learning collaborative for state agencies, payers, providers, and third party administrators to:
|
| Measuring Results |
Oregon Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) Program: Chapter 595 of the 2009 Oregon Laws requires practices receiving Patient-Centered Primary Care Home (PCPCH) reimbursement to report quality measures specified by OHPR. Proposed PCPCH measures vary by tier, and can be found in Appendices C and D of the Standards Advisory Committee’s final report.
Under the upcoming Integrated and Coordinated Health Care Delivery System, CCOs will be required to report uniform quality measures for PCPCHs to OHA.
PCPCH efforts will be included in a statewide scorecard to measure success for the Action Plan for Health across the OHA lines of coverage as well as statewide.
ACA Section 2703 Health Homes: Oregon will use the state’s Medicaid Management Information System to collect population-level data to measure success toward the state’s five goals for this state plan amendment:
The state will also use AHRQ’s Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) surveys to measure care coordination and implement learning collaborative with health home providers and high-risk enrollees to discuss program successes, challenges, and lessons learned.
|
For individuals living with complex, often chronic conditions, and their families, palliative care can provide relief from symptoms, improve satisfaction and outcomes, and help address critical mental and spiritual needs during difficult times. Now more than ever, there is growing recognition of the importance of palliative care services for individuals with serious illness, such as advance care planning, pain and symptom management, care coordination, and team-based, multi-disciplinary support. These services can help patients and families cope with the symptoms and stressors of disease, better anticipate and avoid crises, and reduce unnecessary and/or unwanted care. While this model is grounded in evidence that demonstrates improved quality of life, better outcomes, and reduced cost for patients, only a fraction of individuals who could benefit from palliative care receive it. 
