On May 15th, CMS announced funding for round two of the Health Care Innovation Awards. CMS is planning to spend up to $1 billion for awards and projects that are going to test new payment and service delivery models to help deliver better care and lower costs for Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP enrollees. The second round of the Health Care Innovation Awards will support public and private organizations in four defined areas. Specifically, CMS is seeking proposals in these categories:
- Models that are designed to rapidly reduce Medicare, Medicaid, and/or CHIP costs in outpatient and/or post-acute settings
- Models that improve care for populations with specialized needs
- Models that test approaches for specific types of providers to transform their financial and clinical models
- Models that improve the health of populations defined geographically, clinically, or by socioeconomic class with activities focused on engaging beneficiaries
Interested parties who have developed innovations that will drive significant improvement in population health, quality of care, and total cost of care are welcome to apply. Eligible applicants include but are not limited to provider groups, health systems, payers, other private sector organizations, faith-based organizations, states, local governments, public-private partnerships, and for profit organizations.
All applicants are required to submit non-binding letters of intent by June 28, 2013. Failure to submit a Letter of Intent to apply will disqualify the application from being reviewed.
All applicants are required to submit a complete application to CMS. Applications will be available June 14 and completed applications will be accepted until August 15, 2012. All applications must be submitted electronically through www.grants.gov.
To read the FOA, go to http://innovation.cms.gov/Files/x/HCIA-Two-FOA.pdf and for questions, email InnovationAwards@cmc.hhs.gov.