The ACCESS Model launches July 5. The real question is whether technology can improve care while keeping physicians at the center. 
On July 5, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will launch the ACCESS Model, short for Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions. It may prove to be one of the more interesting health care experiments in years.
At its core, ACCESS asks a big question: Can technology companies help fix American health care?
The model is designed to expand technology-supported care for Medicare patients with chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic musculoskeletal pain, depression, and anxiety. Rather than simply paying for visits, procedures, or minutes of service, ACCESS creates outcome-aligned payments tied to measurable improvements in health.
That is a meaningful shift.
For years, health care has talked about moving from volume to value. ACCESS attempts something different by opening a more direct pathway for technology-enabled organizations to participate in Medicare and be paid for results. Remote monitoring, digital tools, virtual care, artificial intelligence, connected devices, and other technologies could become a larger part of how chronic disease is managed.
The opportunity is obvious. Technology companies can move quickly. They can scale. They can reach patients between office visits. They can collect data continuously rather than episodically. And they may be able to engage patients in ways the traditional health care system has struggled to do.
But July 5 will also begin a much larger test.
Can these companies actually improve outcomes in the real world? Can they integrate with existing physician practices rather than fragment care? Can they reach rural communities and underserved patients? Can they protect the physician-patient relationship? And can they produce lasting health improvements rather than simply adding another layer of apps, dashboards, devices, and alerts?
There is also an important role for physicians. ACCESS should not become a competition between technology and traditional medical practice. The better model is partnership.
Physicians know their patients. They understand the clinical history, the family dynamics, the medications, the barriers to care, and the realities that rarely fit neatly into an algorithm. Technology may help extend care, but it should not disconnect patients from the physicians who know them best.
That raises another practical question: Who will connect the physician to ACCESS?
Many practices do not have the time or infrastructure to evaluate dozens of technology companies, negotiate relationships, redesign workflows, manage data exchange, and determine which partners are credible. If ACCESS succeeds, trusted conveners may be essential in helping physicians understand the model, identify strong partners, and integrate new tools into existing care. Are Medical Societies a possible partner? The regulatory framework around federal billing may make that challenging.
The Physicians Research Institute believes there is a real opportunity here. We also believe the physician must remain central to the conversation.
July 5 will not tell us whether technology can fix American health care. But it may mark the beginning of a serious test of whether technology, aligned with outcomes and connected to physicians, can help build something better.
The technology companies are coming.
The question is whether physicians will help shape what comes next.
By Gene M. Ransom III
Chair, Physicians Research Institute
