Primary Care MATTERS
An advocacy group for primary care doctors, sharing information about CMS policy impact and live, updated survey results.
We informed tens of thousands of PCPs nationwide of how CMS' RTA risk corridors policy has consistently underpredicted healthcare costs, keeping earned shared savings out of the doctors' office and creating cash flow concerns for Medicare providers.
When asked
"If CMS does not rectify the risk corridors issue, would it prevent you from participating in future CMS programs like LEAD?"...
said that lack of RTA risk corridor adjustment WOULD prevent them from participating in programs like LEAD.
(survey data updated daily)
The facts about risk corridors
PCPs in ACOs save taxpayer dollars
In 2023, PCPs generated over $2.1 billion+ in total savings for Medicare. They earn back a portion of those savings (based on performance against preset benchmarks) to continue to deliver higher quality care. The majority of these funds are invested in hiring staff, managing operations, and implementing life-saving technology.
Incentivized to provide quality care
When ACO practices meet quality and savings requirements, they receive a percentage of the savings as a bonus payment. These payments are essential for top performers to continue high level of care and invest in resources.
CMS sets their own RTA risk corridors
RTA risk corridors insulate CMS from their own cost underpredictions, and are meant to protect PCPs from CMS overpredictions. Historically, the RTA has often lowered benchmarks unexpectedly, causing high financial uncertainty for ACOs, and threatening the exact practices who benefit most from shared savings.
CMS is clawing back earned shared savings
In 2025, CMS underpredicted healthcare costs by a whopping 10%, keeping $1.2 billion out of the hands of PCPs, limiting their ability to provide a continuance of high quality care (for Medicare and other patients), and creating significant concern around future CMS programs.