A Welcome Shift In Direction At CMS–Now Comes The Hard Part

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced a new strategic direction for the agency, focused on the goal of “Making America Healthy Again.” This updated 2025 strategy emphasizes prevention, choice, competition, and accountability in the healthcare delivery system.

The shift towards evidence-based prevention, patient empowerment, and competition reflects a move towards a more value-oriented system. The recognition of the need for provider accountability and the connection between outcomes and cost is a significant departure from previous approaches.

The current healthcare delivery model is broken, requiring a new business model that prioritizes health outcomes and value creation over services billed. CMS should set expectations for providers to innovate and compete based on performance, rather than micromanaging delivery.

A key aspect of the new CMS strategy is the emphasis on accountability across the continuum of care. Site-neutral payment is introduced to remove incentives favoring certain healthcare settings over others, encouraging providers to deliver care more efficiently.

Public reimbursement should focus on delivering value for patients and taxpayers, holding organizations accountable for evidence-based and cost-effective care. The strategy aligns every model with fiscal soundness and outcome improvement, ensuring sustainability for public programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Transparency, accountability, and support for high-performing providers are essential components of the new direction. The success of the CMS Innovation Center’s plan lies in translating vision into operational reality, with a focus on disciplined execution and results.

CMS should create conditions for innovation, enforce transparency, and accountability, and let market forces reward high performance. The government’s role is to establish expectations for reimbursement, not dictate how care should be delivered.

This promising shift in direction requires alignment of incentives, enforcement of accountability, support for competition, and education of providers and patients in a value-based marketplace. While there is still work to be done, the new CMS strategy provides a starting point for a more effective and efficient healthcare system.