Crouse Medical Practice among hundreds CMS selects for heart attack, stroke prevention program

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — Crouse Medical Practice, PLLC (CMP) is participating in a national program that seeks to help reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes among millions of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.

The Baltimore, Maryland–based Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) selected CMP as one of 516 awardees in 47 states, Crouse Health said in a Jan. 3 news release.

CMP, which is affiliated with Crouse Health, is participating in what’s called the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Risk-Reduction Model program.

The initiative seeks to decrease cardiovascular-disease risk by assessing an individual patient’s risk for heart attack or stroke and applying prevention interventions.

Besides Crouse Medical Practice, other Syracuse health-care providers participating include New York Heart Center at 1000 E. Genesee St.; Upstate Family Medicine at 475 Irving Ave.; and the Syracuse Community Health Center at 819 S. Salina St., according to a list posted on the CMS website.

Beyond Syracuse, health-care providers in locations that include Buffalo, Albany, Glens Falls, Bath, Elmira, Poughkeepsie, and organizations in the New York City area are also involved, CMS said.

CMS expects the Million Hearts CVD Risk-Reduction Model program to reach more than 3.3 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries and involve nearly 20,000 health-care practitioners over a five-year period, beginning in January 2017 and end by December 2022.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death and a “major contributor” to disability in the U.S., according to Crouse Health.

Heart attacks and strokes cause one in three deaths, resulting in more than $300 billion in health-care costs each year, the organization added.

About the program

Health-care providers are currently paid to screen for blood pressure, cholesterol, or other risk factors individually.

In testing a new approach, health-care providers participating in the intervention group of the Million Hearts CVD Risk Reduction Model will use a data-driven, “widely accepted, predictive” modeling approach to generate personalized risk scores.

At the same time, they’ll work to develop specific plans in partnership with patients to reduce the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Accepted applicants were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group in accordance with the model’s randomized control design.

“Our health-care system historically has focused on acute care over preventive care,” Dr. Carl Butch, medical director of Crouse Medical Practice, said in the Crouse Health news release. “This initiative will enhance patient-centered care and give practitioners the resources to invest the time and staff to address and manage patients who are at high risk for heart attacks and strokes.”

Crouse Medical Practice is participating in the intervention group and will work with Medicare fee-for-service patients to determine their 10-year individual risk for a heart attack or stroke.

CMP will then work with patients individually to identify the best approach to reducing their risk of having a heart attack or stroke — for example, smoking-cessation programs, blood-pressure management, or cholesterol-lowering drugs or aspirin.

Each patient will receive a personalized risk modification plan that will target his/her specific risk factors.

Formed in 2010, Crouse Medical Practice is a “multispecialty” physician practice with multiple locations and over 80 providers, including primary-care physicians, neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuroendovascular surgeons, and cardiologists, according to Crouse Health.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com