Montefiore Health System announced its best year to date in improving the quality and care experience of Medicare beneficiaries in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Model. New analysis from CMS shows Montefiore’s providers earned an exemplary Pioneer ACO quality score of 92.6 percent. Simultaneously, 367 new providers and nearly 15,000 new patients joined Montefiore in 2015, while Medicare costs for all Montefiore patients remained flat. 

The new analysis from CMS reports on the fourth year of the Model and suggests that Montefiore’s positive outcomes are a result of an emphasis on interactions between providers, patients, and caregivers. Notably, patients gave providers high scores for communication and overall provider ratings. Considerable gains were also seen in preventive health quality metrics like breast cancer screening, implementing new standard guidelines for patients with hypertension and an uptick in flu vaccinations. Total quality scores in the fourth year increased more than six percent from the previous year.

“Simply put, we put the health of our patients first and foremost,” said Stephen Rosenthal, senior vice president, population health management, Montefiore. “The emphasis on patient/provider interactions combined with efforts to continually refine our approach to care has worked well. We have a much greater understanding of how best to deploy population health strategies and we are incredibly proud of the positive impact this has had on patient care.”

Montefiore, an academic health system and the University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, has led the healthcare industry in rewarding providers based on quality rather than quantity of care for two decades.

Montefiore has partnered with CMS for more than five years on various demonstration projects aimed at improving the health and well-being of Medicare patients, and curbing unnecessary spending. It has also expanded value-based relationships with New York State and non-government payers across the Bronx, Westchester, and the Hudson Valley. Currently, more than 450,000 patients participate in these arrangements.