Presented by: Tara Lagu, MD, MPH; Betsy Hart, MS, ACSM-CEP, CCRP, CDCES, FAACVPR; Caitlin Coppenrath, MS, ACSM-CEP, CCRP
Disclosures: Employee (Lagu) - Alliant Insurance Services

1.0 CEUs: AACVPR, AMA, CDR, ANCC, AARC, ACSM

Description: In recent years, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services have introduced a series of new value-based care models explicitly focused on reducing hospitalizations among patients with cardiovascular disease and specifically heart failure (HF). In the recording from the 2026 Annual Meeting, Dr. Lagu, an expert in both cardiac rehabilitation and population health, will introduce these models and the ways that their movement into mainstream health system workflows are an opportunity to increase CR uptake. First, Dr. Lagu will describe value-based care generally, introduce the ACO program, and then will focus on the Ambulatory Specialty Model and ACCESS Model. ASM is a mandatory model that, starting in 2027, will enroll cardiologists across the US and will put them at risk for payment losses if HF hospitalization rates are high. This represents a unique opportunity to engage cardiologists about the need for targeted use of cardiac rehabilitation to reduce hospitalizations. Another program, the ACCESS Model, might pose an opportunity increase use of remote cardiac rehab, and this will be described as well. Then, two experts in engagement of both cardiology practices and C-suite representatives to increase CR uptake, Betsy Hart and Caitlin Coppenrath, will share their lessons learned about real-world strategies to engage cardiology practices and health care executives around increasing CR use. They will propose ways that they have used payment innovations to address pervasive barriers to CR for patients with HF and cancer and will focus on reflections about how this work might drive local and national CR practice improvement, increase enrollment numbers for patients with HF and other chronic and acute conditions, and inspire future directions for other opportunities (such as Pulmonary Rehabilitation for COPD and cardio-oncologic rehabilitation). 

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe value-based care programs that are likely to affect CR professionals in the coming years and to suggest how these models represent opportunities to increase CR use across cardiac and noncardiac diagnoses.
2. Discuss how leading CR programs have engaged cardiology, other subspecialty practices, and C-suite representatives to increase CR referral, enrollment, and retention of patients as they work to improve their value-based care performance by reducing hospitalizations and expenditures for this population.
3. Discuss the methods for leveraging value-based care programs to consider how unique approaches to implementation and payment for CR (including remote CR, hybrid CR, and practice improvement innovations) could increase uptake of CR.