Future of Health Care 2020

Payments and
Reimbursements
THE FUTURE OF HEALTH CARE // PATIENT CARE
Sponsored by
SCRAMBLING
FOR FUNDS
Elizabeth Woike-Ganga
of BestSelf Behavioral
Health: “The DSRIP
funding really allowed
us to implement some
innovative, out-of-thebox
solutions to keep
people out of the ER and
the hospital, and we did
that really successfully.”
JOED VIERA
END OF $335M MEDICAID REFORM PROGRAM CHALLENGES PROVIDERS
BY TRACEY DRURY
tdrury@bizjournals.com
For the last five years, area health-care
providers have been developing programs
and innovations to cut emergency-room
visits and unnecessary hospital
readmissions, thanks to $335 million
in federal dollars for Medicaid reforms.
March 31 was the official end to the
Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment
(DSRIP) program, leaving providers
to figure out how to continue programs or
find resources and grant funding to keep
staffers in new or adjusted roles.
The federal waiver, initially approved
in 2014, brought $8 billion into the state,
with $335 million distributed in Western
New York through the Millennium Collaborative
Care system — led by Erie County
Medical Center — and Community Partners
of Western New York — led by Catholic
Health’s Sisters of Charity Hospital.
The two organizations funneled those dollars
to hundreds of area providers to focus
on solutions in physical and behavioral
health, as well as ways to address how
poor transportation and lack of child care
affect access to health care.
Amy White-Storfer, director of
Community Partners, said successful
efforts to help physician practices achieve
operating efficiencies has already led to
better quality care for patients.
“We were able to get way more practices
up and running, from our biggest primarycare
networks to our smaller sites,” she
said. “We were also able to implement
some population health tools, identifying
at-risk patients and what interventions
SEE PROGRAMS, PAGE 38
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