Exclusivity of Primary Care Physicians Under MSSP Rules
There has been a lot of confusion across the country about the primary care exclusivity requirement that applies to Accountable Care Organizations under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Some providers are under the mistaken belief that primary care doctors must be exclusive with the ACO under all payment types, including private commercial contracts. This extent of exclusivity is not required under the MSSP rules. In fact, exclusivity is a huge factor that is indicative of antitrust violation except where required under the MSSP regulations.
The exclusivity requirement for primary care physicians is limited to participation in the MSSP program. Primary care physician are not required to be exclusive to an ACO for commercial contracts. Below are some quotes that were made by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the recently released revised MSSP regulations. This information clearly indicates the scope and purposes of the exclusivity requirement for primary care physicians.
CMS Statement On Exclusivity of Primary Care Providers
Response: We regret that some of the language in the preamble about the exclusivity of ACO participants (defined by the Medicare-enrolled billing TIN) created unnecessary confusion about the proposal. The point of our proposal was that, for us to appropriately evaluate ACO performance, we must evaluate performance based on a patient population unique to the ACO. Therefore, some ACO participants, specifically those that bill for the primary care services on which we proposed to base assignment, would have to be exclusive to an ACO, for the purpose of Medicare beneficiary assignment, for the duration of an agreement period. In the absence of such exclusivity and in a situation where an ACO participant is associated with two or more ACOs, it would be unclear which ACO would receive an incentive payment for the participant’s efforts on behalf of its assigned patient population.
Exclusivity of the assignment-based ACO participant TIN ensures unique beneficiary assignment to a single ACO. However, exclusivity of an ACO participant TIN to one ACO is not necessarily the same as exclusivity of individual practitioners (ACO providers/suppliers) to one ACO. We did state somewhat imprecisely in the preamble to the proposed rule that “ACO professionals within the respective TIN on which beneficiary assignment is based, will be exclusive to one ACO agreement in the Shared Savings Program. This exclusivity will only apply to the primary care physicians.” This statement appears to be the basis of the concerns expressed by many commenters, and we understand the reasons for those concerns. However, we stated the policy (76 FR 19563) we intended to propose more precisely elsewhere in the preamble, when we stated that “[t]his exclusivity will only apply to primary care physicians (defined as physicians with a designation of internal medicine, geriatric medicine, family practice and general practice, as discussed later in this final rule) by whom beneficiary assignment is established when billing under ACO participant TINs. (Emphasis added).
Thus, the exclusivity necessary for the assignment process to work accurately requires a commitment of each assignment-based ACO participant to a single ACO for purposes of serving Medicare beneficiaries. It does not necessarily require exclusivity of each primary care physician (ACO provider/supplier) whose services are the basis for such assignment. For example, exclusivity of an ACO participant leaves individual NPIs free to participate in multiple ACOs if they bill under several different TINs. Similarly, an individual NPI can move from one ACO to another during the agreement period, provided that he or she has not been billing under an individual TIN. A member of a group practice that is an ACO participant, where billing is conducted on the basis of the group’s TIN, may move during the performance year from one group practice into another, or into solo practice, even if doing so involves moving from one ACO to another.
This degree of flexibility is, in fact, one reason for our preference to use TINs to identify ACO participants over NPIs: adopting NPIs in place of TINs would result in the much stricter exclusivity rules for individual practitioners to which so many commenters objected, than the use of TINs to identify ACOs. This flexibility is limited, once again, only in cases where the ACO participant billing TIN and individual TIN are identical, as in the case of solo practitioners. Even in those cases, moreover, it was not our intent (and it is no part of the policy that we are adopting in this final rule) that an individual practitioner may not move from one practice to another. But while solo practitioners who have joined an ACO as an ACO participant and upon whom assignment is based may move during the agreement period, they may not participate in another ACO for purposes of the Shared Savings Program unless they will be billing under a different TIN in that ACO.
We are therefore finalizing our proposal that each ACO participant TIN is required to commit to an agreement with us. In addition, each ACO participant TIN upon which beneficiary assignment is dependent must be exclusive to one ACO for purposes of the Shared Savings Program. ACO participant TINs upon which beneficiary assignment is not dependent are not required to be exclusive to a single ACO for purposes for the Shared Savings Program. As we discuss in section E found later in this final rule we are also providing for consideration of the primary care services provided by specialist physicians, PAs, and NPs in the assignment process subsequent to the identification of the “triggering” physician primary care services. We are therefore also extending our exclusivity policy to these ACO participants. That is, the TINs under which the services of specialists, PAs, and NPs are included in the assignment process would have to be exclusive to one ACO for purposes of the Shared Savings Program. (We emphasize that we are establishing this policy for purposes of Shared Savings Program ACOs only: Commercial ACOs may or may not wish to adopt a similar policy for their purposes.
