Support for the Medicare Care Management Performance Demonstration and Implementation Support for the Electronic Health Records Demonstration

The recruitment period for practices in the four Phase I sites (including Louisiana, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, 11 counties in S.W. Pennsylvania and South Dakota, and specific counties in bordering states) ended November 26, 2008. The demonstration began in these sites on June 1, 2009, and will continue through May 31, 2014. Plans to implement a second phase of the demonstration in eight additional locations were cancelled as a result of passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. However, Phase I is proceeding as originally planned. The contractor, Actuarial Research Corporation (ARC), was responsible for reviewing and tracking applications received from primary care practices in the Phase I sites; eligible practices were subsequently randomized into treatment and control groups. The contractor is providing a critical ongoing consultative role in the implementation and operation of the EHR demonstration including, but not limited to: aggregation of claims data, beneficiary assignment, and calculation of payment incentives under the demonstration.