Crouse Medical Practice Selected to Participate in National Initiative to Prevent Heart Attacks and Strokes

Crouse Medical Practice (CMP) has been selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as one of 516 awardees in 47 states to help reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes among millions of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.

Affiliated with Crouse Health, CMP is participating in the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Disease Risk Reduction Model program and will work to decrease cardiovascular disease risk by assessing an individual patient’s risk for heart attack or stroke and applying prevention interventions.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death and a major contributor to disability in the United States. One in three deaths are caused by heart attacks and strokes, resulting in more than $300 billion of healthcare costs each year.

Currently, healthcare practitioners are paid to screen for blood pressure, cholesterol or other risk factors individually. In testing a new approach, healthcare providers participating in the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Disease Risk Reduction Model’s intervention group will use a data-driven, widely accepted predictive modeling approach. This method generates personalized risk scores and develops 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.

“Historically, our healthcare system has focused on acute care rather than preventive care,” said Carl Butch, MD, medical director of Crouse Medical Practice. “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.”

Overall, nearly 20,000 healthcare practitioners and more than 3.3 million Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries will participate in the five-year model. Crouse Medical Practice is participating in the intervention group and will work with Medicare fee-for-service patients to determine their ten-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 intervention, blood pressure management, or cholesterol-lowering drugs or aspirin. Each patient will receive a personalized risk modification plan that will target their specific risk factors.

Formed in 2010, Crouse Medical Practice is a multispecialty physician practice with multiple locations and more than 120 providers, including primary care physicians, neurologists, neurosurgeons, neuroendovascular surgeons and cardiologists.

To learn more about Crouse Medical Practice, visit https://www.crousemed.com. For additional information about the Million Hearts Cardiovascular Risk Reduction Model, visit https://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/Million-Hearts-CVDRRM/.