CMS began launching quality initiatives in 2001 under former CMS Administrator Thomas Scully and has continued to introduce new programs to improve the quality of healthcare delivered to Medicare beneficiaries.
CMS estimated that by 2017 the United States would spend more than $4 trillion on healthcare, twice what it spends now and an increase from roughly 14.5 percent to 21 percent of the total economy. The Medicare Trust Fund is predicted to go bankrupt by 2019, but that could occur as soon as 2016, according to federal actuaries.
“It is incumbent on us to use the lessons we’ve learned with many of the tools we have implemented to help the nation’s health care leaders as they look to improve the health care system in a time that’s even more critical because the projected rate of growth in health care costs is climbing at an unsustainable rate,” said Acting CMS Administrator Kerry Weems.
Learn more about these CMS quality initiatives.
