About Joanne Kenen

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

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Photo: Yann via Flickr

The Urban Institute and the Catalyst for Payment Reform have collaborated on a series of briefs about various forms of health payment reform. Over the summer we’ll look at some that are receiving a lot of attention from policymakers and payers.

Let’s start with capitation. The recent Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announcement about Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) isn’t a switch to a fully capitated system. But this five-year model, scheduled to launch in January, does offer a degree of capitation, and moves further toward shifting more payments to a per-patient fee. Let’s look at what Urban/Catalyst says about the benefits and drawbacks of a capitated primary care payment system. Continue reading →