The Applied Policy team has a history of providing extensive services to health systems, hospitals, group practices, skilled nursing and long-term care providers, home health and hospice providers, and individual practitioners. We not only provide regulatory monitoring and analysis services, but we also focus on guiding our clients’ projects through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other government agencies. This has included outlining the federally qualified health center process and positioning practices to begin the application process, identifying issues with physician supply and developing an actionable policy for CMS to implement, and developing quality improvement practices.

Previously, a large regional health system came to Applied Policy to develop a strong national presence and become actively engaged in the implementation of health reform. The Applied Policy team identified the system’s strengths, and capitalized on these to achieve its goals. With support from Applied Policy, the client’s leadership has:

• Testified before the Institute of Medicine
• Presented at the National Quality Forum’s Annual Conference
• Presented at the CMS National Conference on Care Transitions
• Presented at the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s Industry Day
• Been invited to participate in a clinical trials initiative organized by the National Minority Quality Forum

Applied Policy has also facilitated a health system’s engagement in health reform implementation by drafting comments on:

• the annual prospective payment system rules;
• the CMS Innovation Center’s New Directions Request for information, and more.

In doing so, we created multiple analyses of different aspects of the proposed rules and the RFI and coordinated comments on the them to assure CMS could implement a policy that accounts for all the settings of care while considering innovative pilots that achieve the CMS Innovation Center’s mission to increase quality of care while reducing costs.

Applied Policy can also serve as a vital resource for health plans struggling to keep up with today’s fast-changing health policy landscape. Our team has decades of experience working with key government managed care programs, like Medicare Advantage, the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug benefit, and Medicaid managed care. Applied Policy has the expertise to help design and execute strategies to manage policy changes or change the policies themselves.

One of Applied Policy’s clients wished to equalize payment between one of three therapeutically-equivalent therapies in order to reduce costs and eliminate a disincentive for providers to use the lowest-cost, therapeutically appropriate product. Applied Policy researched government regulations and guidance, and prepared case studies to assist the client in determining the best course of action. The client was able to use the analysis in operationalizing the program designed to reduce costs for beneficiaries and taxpayers without compromising quality or financially penalizing providers.