Overview
OPCA developed the Alternative Payment and Advanced Care Model (APCM) program in collaboration with the Oregon Health Authority (OHA) and Oregon’s community health centers (CHCs) to align payment and transform care to promote optimal health and health equity.
The standard payment mechanisms of the fee-for-service model in health care limits the ability of primary care teams to meet the real needs of patients. The limitations of a fee-for-service approach are especially severe in safety net health care settings, where the effects of poverty, trauma, stress, and chronic disease require more care than a single, short visit with a provider can accomplish.
In partnership with health centers and the OHA, OPCA developed the APCM program to provide community health centers with the flexibility to not just deliver health care, but to foster health in the communities they serve. Oregon’s approach is the first Medicaid Alternative Payment Methodology (APM) for Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) that has removed the incentive to produce face-to-face visits with a billable provider over a multi-year timeframe.
Details
The payment model of APCM allows care teams to focus on patients instead of visits.
Under the APCM program, the fee-for-service Medicaid reimbursement for health centers is converted into a per-member, per-month payment. This capitated approach to payment gives community health centers the opportunity to tailor their care and services to the unique issues and circumstances of their patients, as well as to adjust where, how, and what kind of care and services they provide. With this flexibility, health centers can focus on partnering with patients to create a plan for supporting better health.
With the latitude created by the alternative approach to payment, the APCM care model encourages care teams to address root causes of illness and well-being in the lives of their patients.
With revenue no longer directly tethered to the provision of individual medical encounters, community health centers can focus on developing a more effective approach to improving population health. The Social Determinants of Health are increasingly recognized as the critical drivers of health and well-being; APCM allows health centers to understand and respond to the non-medical circumstances that influence their patients’ health. Instead of reacting to episodic or emergent illnesses, teams treat the whole person, paying attention to their health as well as its economic, environmental, and social causes. The APCM model allows community health centers to focus on patients’ needs and priorities, which may be best addressed outside the examination room and even outside the walls of the clinic.
OPCA has been leading the development of the APCM program since 2010.
Since 2010, OPCA has been leading the development and implementation of the FQHC Alternative Payment Methodology (APM), in partnership with the State Medicaid office within the OHA. The APM program began with a pilot group of three clinics and has now grown to include 20 out of Oregon’s 34 CHCs, along with two Rural Health Clinics. The first cohort of clinics went live on the new payment model in March of 2013.
For more information,view OPCA’s APCM Vision Brochure.
