Senators will get their first chance Wednesday to press for operational details from the head of a fledgling CMS office with the power to drive wide-scale changes in Medicare and Medicaid.
Dr. Richard Gilfillan, director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS, will make his first congressional appearance before the Senate Finance Committee to provide details about the inner workings of the office created by the 2010 healthcare overhaul to test new models of delivering and funding care in Medicare and Medicaid.
The hearing follows repeated Republican efforts to obtain details on how CMMI is spending the $10 billion that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act appropriated to it. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), called for a hearing on the CMMI at a Feb. 28 hearing on health system reforms.
“Like many of my colleagues, I remain concerned that CMMI has an enormous budget and very little accountability,” Hatch said.