Leavitt Partners, Facing Addiction, Remedy Partners Announce New Payment System

Leavitt Partners, Facing Addiction with NCADD (The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence) and Remedy Partners, along with other leading healthcare companies, announced last week they have launched the Addiction Recovery Medical Home (ARMH) model, an Alternative Payment Model (APM)  designed to provide patients with a long-term, comprehensive pathway to treatment and recovery.

According to the companies, the ARMH framework creates a broad area of care ranging from emergent and stabilizing acute-care settings to community-based services and support that are essential to managing patient needs in a chronic disease model. The proposed payment model — which incorporates aspects of fee-for-service, episodes-of-care, quality-adjustments and shared-savings — promotes the improved integration of treatment and recovery resources along with financial incentives that benefit everyone when the patient is well managed by a multi-disciplinary care team.

“As addiction to alcohol and other drugs now impacts 1 in 3 households in America, we must urgently work to turn the tide on this health crisis,” said Greg Williams, a person in long-term recovery and Facing Addiction with NCADD’s Executive Vice President, in the press release.  “In late 2016, the U.S. Surgeon General issued the seminal report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health: Facing Addiction In America. In this report, an urgent call to action for mainstream health systems to begin integration of substance use health services was afforded an entire chapter, and the industry leaders in this Alliance have responded in unprecedented fashion to that call.”

Chris Garcia, chief executive officer at Remedy Partners, said in the same press release that current payment models have failed to encourage lasting recovery for people that are contending with an addiction and that “the ARMH model offers the potential to refocus the energies of physicians and other care givers on what matters, helping the patient on the pathway to lasting recovery.” The Alliance said it plans to pilot the ARMH model in at least two markets beginning in 2019.  They will also create a research methodology to study the effects of the model when compared to non-ARMH models of care and to study correlations between specific model tenets and the outcomes.

“We see the most progress in healthcare when the clinical and the economic incentives are aligned. Treating substance use is tough enough, but without a thoughtful economic system in place, it is going to be very slow going,” said David Shulkin, MD, Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and Chairman, Remedy Partners National Advisory Board, in the same press release. “The addiction recovery medical home model of care aligns the interests of patients, providers and payers through a new risk-based payment methodology. Combined with the right therapeutic approaches to care, this payment system is the type of innovation that we need to accelerate our progress in dealing with the opioid crisis.”