Sean Cavanaugh

Ex-CDC director: The last words my father spoke to me—and what they taught me about saving lives the heart of the problem in prevention (and primary care)- how can we know the harm that would have been done, lives that would have been lost, "but for us" fortune.com/2025/09/21/tom…

Last week, Aledade had the honor of bringing partner physician and health care leaders to Washington, D.C. for a truly impactful Hill Day. We teamed up with @NAACOSnews and the broader accountable care organization (ACO) community to meet with Congressional offices and share a simple message: Accountable care is working. Our partners shared firsthand accounts of how ACOs are improving patient care and outcomes, and we advocated for key policy priorities, including eliminating flawed benchmarks and reducing regulatory burden. Read more about Hill Day and our policy work: bit.ly/3Kbi8qs #PrimaryCare #HealthPolicy #ValueBasedCare

1/ The 2024 Medicare Shared Savings Program results are released from embargo! topline results: 10,326,340 bene-years (12% @AledadeACO ) $6,452,075,989 in savings versus benchmark $4,062,804,612 in payments to ACOs (19% Aledade) Largest savings ever Higher quality than FFS🎉

Check out Innovation Center Director @AbeSutton on the latest episode of The ACO Show where he talks to @Farzad_MD about the Center’s strategy, WISeR and ASM models, & helping shape the future of health care innovation. Tune in: bit.ly/3ISZzql @AledadeACO @dc_cavanaugh

In ordinary times, this would get attention. CBO projects the Medicare Part A Trust Fund will be depleted in 2052, versus 2035 in last year's report. Also important, but still TBD, is the outlook for Medicare Part B spending, which affects premiums. #_idTextAnchor026" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">cbo.gov/publication/61…

Why has value-based care adoption slowed? Because the transition isn’t just policy—it’s an innovation adoption challenge. In @nejmcatalyst, @Farzad_MD and I explore how to bridge the chasm. catalyst.nejm.org/stoken/default… #ValueBasedCare #HealthcareInnovation #HealthTech #PrimaryCare

Excited to announce the Aledade Policy Institute. Long way from 2015 when the policy team was half of my time while I also ran an ACO while doing my best impression of a data analyst, compliance officer, contract negotiator, and network developer. aledade.com/newsroom/aleda…

1/ A topic of great interest at #JPM was the "better than expected" 2026 Advance Rate Notice for Medicare Advantage that dropped on Friday I dug into the numbers - let me share what it might portend for plans and risk-taking providers in MA, after a tough couple of years (🚀)

1/ Is Value-Based Care working? After a decade, we know this: The latest results for the largest such program just dropped. Giving primary care accountability for total cost and quality of care is good for patients, good for practices, and good for society. Let's dig in.

1/ Friends, after 2,600 miles we pulled into the parking lot of Dr Eric Hansen He bought the land and designed the office. He's going to do some branch cutting on the trees after we leave His 3 longtime staff and his wife support him it's *his practice* in every way possible

1/ The character of each practice is so tied to the land it inhabits, none more so than our Colorado practice visit An active lifestyle matters to those who work in the practices and those they serve alike The mountains beauty even compelled us to start the day with a dawn hike

1/ I’m going to visit an @AledadeACO practice near LA on Saturday I’m driving there … a brief update on the #ACOroadshow and how it’s going

@Michael_Chernew And CMS had proposed this policy in 2014 (for 2015) but didn’t finalize it because of push back from Congress. cms.gov/Medicare/Healt…

That’s correct: medpac.gov/march-2016-rep…. And much more on the topic in subsequent reports.

1/ The annual quick read and analysis of the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that regulates the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) is upon us, folks. like last year, there are a number of uncontroversial/incremental improvements there are also a couple of head-scratchers..

Meticulous methods, exhaustive data wrangling, systematic elimination of alternative explanations. a tour de force of research that quantifies what most health policy folks have long believed hospital price increases (eg through market power) hurts people, employers, communities

grateful for indispensable role CMS played by injecting liquidity during Change Healthcare Hacks. "CMS said it has already recovered over 96% of CHOPD payments to date and that suppliers and providers of services are now successfully billing Medicare." finance.yahoo.com/news/us-plans-…

@dp_oneill @JMichaelMcW I wonder what Traditional Medicare benefits would look like if we invested another $82 billion in the program?

I agree misleading to call MA a failure Vital not to conflate concept with execution MA has shown signs of promise but gains limited by design flaws But addressing TM’s key deficits may be needed to get what we want out of MA by exerting more competitive pressure So congressional action to reform TM may be needed anyway and it’s not clear to me that these two opposing viewpoints are so opposing - it may be optimal to strengthen TM while also fixing some flaws in MA to get more out of Medicare as a whole

@MattAFiedler @JMichaelMcW @DavidIAuerbach @LorenAdler Right. Risk adjustment measures the difference in risk between FFS and MA. As long as the model is based on diagnoses that are reported differentially in the two systems, it will continue to drive overpayments.

@JMichaelMcW @DavidIAuerbach @LorenAdler But if plans are finding people who actually have the condition and aren't coded in TM, then calibrating on the encounter data can actually increase the coefficient for the code (since lacking the code is now a better marker of good health!), making things worse.

Suggestions to improve data on Medicare Advantage, from @LorenAdler and me: (1) improve encounter data; (2) collect data on non-FFS payments; (3) release more data on provider ownership; and (4) release bid/risk score data more promptly/fully. brookings.edu/articles/respo…

@WaysandMeansGOP will hold a hearing today on the “collapse” of independent medicine. As Exec Dir of @PEPC_DC I know that independent practices are alive and well. As @USCBO has found, many are thriving in value based care models like ACOs. Read more👇🏻 medicaleconomics.com/view/independe…