FAH President and CEO Chip Kahn released the following statement after CMMI announced the next steps for the AHEAD model:

“For the good of our patients, all hospitals share the AHEAD model’s goals to improve health equity, increase quality, and lower health care cost growth.

“However, global budgets, the foundation of the model, are the wrong way to go and are more likely to cause issues with access to care and stifle innovation as they are to hold down costs and improve quality and equity.

“The evidence on this type of experiment is less than compelling. Maryland is most often held up as the model to build on nationally, and yet it actually costs taxpayers money. So, we believe CMMI should find other avenues to achieve the goals we all share than committing  to top-down global budget approaches.”