By MARIE COPOULOS & MONICA NAKIELSKI
Adding a Sustainability Lens to Health Innovation Pilots – Following a year of growing conversation about the links between the climate and our health, a new proposed rule from the CMS Innovation Center (CMMI) links value-based payment innovation and sustainability for the first time, creating important precedent for an emerging connection in the health care sector and for system strategy.
In mid-May, CMMI proposed its first innovation model with a sustainability component, Transforming Episode-Based Accountability, or TEAM. The TEAM model is a successor to episode-based alternative payment models and notable in that it’s a mandatory payment model overall, though the sustainability component is voluntary. As proposed, acute care organizations selected to participate will have the option to opt into emissions reporting, opening the door to receive feedback and technical assistance.
This is the first visible link between value-based payment and sustainability from CMMI, a test of a concept that-like all initiatives coming from CMMI-could give way to scale.
This matters because sustainability initiatives require similar core success factors to delivery reform and benefit from alignment. In fact, some of the breakthrough thinking happening in the sustainability space builds on the skill sets and experience gained in the value-based payment over the last decades.
Marie Copoulos is the Managing Principal of Horta Health, LLC and a subject matter expert in health delivery and payment reform in Medicare and Medicaid models. Monica Nakielski is an ESG & Sustainability Advisor at Hameda LLC and a subject matter expert in sustainability and ESG efforts.
