Sunday, October 3, 2010

Call for Proposals Issued

The recently enacted Affordable Care Act includes a variety of provisions aimed at stimulating payment and delivery system reforms along with new federal payment experiments expected to unfold in a few years. These payment efforts will focus primarily on Medicare and to a certain extent Medicaid. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is trying to stimulate payment experimentation with this solicitation.

RWJF seeks to fund innovative proposals for payment reform that are designed to promote high-value healthcare outcomes that use existing market knowledge, partnerships and resources. These funds will not support extensions of existing pay-for-performance efforts or implementation of generic medical home demonstrations.

However, consideration will be given to fund Pay for Performance (P4P) efforts or medical home demonstrations that are linked with outcome-based performance payments. For example, a payment incentive based on reducing hospital readmission rates for chronic disease patients might be an appropriate place to start for a given group or community and could be built around a P4P or medical home effort.

Applicants may propose a multi-stakeholder payment strategy or a payment reform experiment that pertains to a limited care dyad or triad for instance health plans, employers, and healthcare providers.

Proposals for the project titled “Payment Reform for High-Value Care” are due February 2, 2011 with the deadline for brief proposals due on October 20, 2010. Applicants will be notified if invited to submit a full proposal.

A maximum of three grants between $50,000 and $300,000 each will be awarded for up to 36 months each. Applicants must be based in the U.S. and may either be a public entity or non-profit organization.

Go to www.rwjf.org/applications/solicited/cfp.jsp?ID=21281 for more information or for inquiries go to payment-reform@rwjf.org.