CMS just dropped its 2024 performance data for the Medicare Shared Savings Program, and the debate over the program’s true effectiveness rages on despite another record year.
MSSP saved Medicare $2.4B in 2024, the eighth consecutive year of savings and the highest total since the program’s inception in 2012.
- The program generates savings by working with accountable care organizations to cut down on avoidable utilization, eliminate duplicative care, and minimize costly medical errors.
- The ACOs that effectively improve care quality and reduce total spend share in the success, and last year saw 75% of participating ACOs earn $4.1B in performance incentives, a new all-time-high.
Accountable care delivers. MSSP ACOs lifted hypertension control rates to 79.5% in 2024 (up from 77.8% in 2023), while trimming the share of patients with poor hemoglobin A1c control to 9.4% (from 9.8%).
- Low revenue ACOs (typically physician-led) continue to outperform high revenue ACOs (typically hospital-led), generating $316 in net per capita savings (vs. $175).
- Most ACOs also performed better than comparable physician groups on quality measures, such as screening for depression and creating follow-up plans (53.5% vs. 44.4%).
There’s always a catch. Although at first glance 2024 was one of MSSP’s best years to-date, it’s worth noting that total Medicare spending also reached a staggering $847B.
- That means that MSSP, the crown jewel of CMS value-based care programs that includes 476 ACOs equipped with some of the best care delivery tools in the industry, delivered an overall savings of just 0.28%.
- $2.4B is nothing to scoff at, and the program is moving the needle, but it’s nowhere near fast enough to keep pace with Medicare’s runaway growth.
The Takeaway
MSSP had a great 2024 by almost every metric, and its ACOs are the tip of the spear for CMS’s push toward value-based care. That said, it’s a long journey to lower overall Medicare spending even with $2.4B steps, and there’s still plenty of work to be done to help get there faster.
