The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is broadening the ACCESS pilot to include additional chronic illnesses, with the goal of raising the use of digital health tools among Medicare beneficiaries.
Two months after its launch, the Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions model will operate for ten years, providing monthly payments to providers that demonstrate outcome-based improvements through technology.
Beginning in the spring of next year, the program will introduce new tracks for heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, substance-use disorders and tobacco cessation, while also extending musculoskeletal support beyond the original twelve-month period.
Jacob Shiff, chief AI and technology officer, explained that the effort now addresses conditions affecting roughly three-quarters of Medicare enrollees, moving past the earlier focus on cardio-metabolic, musculoskeletal and behavioral health.
The initial phase covered those three categories, and the latest expansion widens outcome-based payments to a larger segment of the Medicare population.
Earlier CMS pilots that tested remote monitoring for diabetes and hypertension showed modest uptake but limited scalability; the new tracks for heart failure and COPD target illnesses with higher hospitalization rates, which could enhance cost-effectiveness.
More than 160 companies have signed up, many of which are newcomers to Medicare. Among the participants are telehealth providers, the meditation app Headspace, the AI chatbot Welldoc and a physician-services group linked to wearable maker Whoop.
The FDA’s TEMPO collaboration permits unapproved digital devices to collect real-world data, and selected firms include the behavioral-health provider SonderMind and the AI voice-therapy agent Limbic.
By linking reimbursement to measurable health outcomes, the initiative encourages developers to create solutions that can demonstrate tangible benefits for patients with complex, long-term conditions.
Stakeholders anticipate that the added focus on heart failure and COPD will generate valuable evidence on how remote monitoring and AI-driven interventions can reduce readmissions and improve quality of life.
Because the program spans a decade, it offers a stable environment for companies to refine their technologies, gather longitudinal data, and adjust their services based on feedback from both clinicians and beneficiaries.
