Medicare Doctors’ Pay Proposal Could Jump-Start Coordinated Care

A Biden administration proposal could boost cost-cutting efforts to steer traditional Medicare beneficiaries—and their doctors—away from the program’s fee-for-service payment model roots.

The proposed 2023 Medicare physician fee schedule rule, if finalized, would provide new financial and programmatic incentives for health-care providers to form or join accountable care organizations, or ACOs. It would also remove barriers to ACO creation among smaller providers that mainly serve underrepresented populations.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services “pulled out all the stops and removed all the excuses for physicians and doctors not to participate,” in ACOs, said David Pittman, senior policy ...