Fierce Healthcare reports that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators has released a paper outlining policy initiatives “aimed at Medicare patients with multiple chronic diseases such as heart disease and diabetes” with the aim of improving treatment and controlling costs as payers and regulators continue the long slog toward emphasizing preventive care and pay-for-value to replace pay for  episode-by-episode service.

The idea, of course, is to replace the traditional episode-by-episode approach with a population-health-based management system,

The proposals are divided into several categories, including, summarizes FierceHealthcare:

• “Patient and caregiver empowerment during the care delivery.
• “High-quality home care.
• “Expanding benefit innovation and technology access.
• “Expanding interdisciplinary, team-based care access.
• “Population-health management for chronically ill patients.

Fierce reports that “{s}pecific policy proposals include reducing care coordination barriers within Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), extending hospice benefits to Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and expanding home-care models. The group also proposes giving Medicare Advantage and ACOs more flexibility to deliver essential non-health services for beneficiaries with multiple complex conditions.”