Washington, D.C. 鈥� (September 11, 2023) 鈥� Today, 熊猫视频submitted its comments on the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services鈥� (CMS) Calendar Year (CY) 2024 Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System and Ambulatory Surgical Center Payment System (OPPS) . Here are the highlights:
鈥淓veryone deserves access to effective, affordable, and equitable mental health support and counseling. Health insurance providers, care professionals, and government agencies must work together to set high-quality standards and guidelines to ensure patients see measurable results.鈥�
鈥溞苊ㄊ悠礽s committed to working together to improve access to mental health and substance use disorder care for every patient who needs it.鈥�
鈥淲hile this new benefit is a step in the right direction, we believe more needs to be done to support patients with acute mental illness or substance use. We encourage CMS to better integrate behavioral health care into the Innovation Center鈥檚 alternative payment model (APM) demonstrations, which could further incentivize coordinated care and help address challenges such as social barriers and stigma.鈥�
鈥淲e appreciate CMS鈥檚 ongoing partnership and commitment to the Core Quality Measure Collaborative, including its work on advancing digital measurement. We also support CMS鈥檚 commitment to leveraging measurement to improve health care quality, access, and equity. Health information technology and digital quality measurement offer ways to assess novel concepts, drive change, and reduce burden on all stakeholders.鈥�
鈥淲e also support CMS鈥檚 goal of ensuring the use of artificial intelligence is safe and ethical. If used responsibly, [artificial intelligence] AI has the potential to improve health care affordability, access, and outcomes. However, we question whether provider performance programs are the right place to monitor the use of AI as these programs should be focused on evidence-based processes and patient outcomes.鈥�