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Setting the Background and Purpose of the ET3 Program In an effort to increase the quality of care for patients and reduce avoidable transports to the ED, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) developed an innovative payment model called Emergency Triage, Treat, and Transport, or ET3 for short. This model really looks to redefine emergency ground ambulance services, who until this model would only be paid by Medicare when transporting patients to approved facilities including hospitals (EDs), even if this was not the most appropriate care setting for the patient’s need. To set a “price tag” on these unnecessary ambulance transports to the ED, a recent White Paper from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Transportation found that Medicare could save $560 million a year by transporting patients to a doctor’s office rather than the ED when appropriate. More importantly, by transporting patients to a more appropriate care setting, patients will have greater options for care and avoid unnecessary visits to the hospital, potentially exposing them to additional complications. Ambulance-sourced ED visits can also be reserved for higher acuity patients in more emergent scenarios. Using our access to the 100% Medicare Fee-for-Service dataset, we developed a free dashboard to calculate avoidable ED rates for counties across the country. To be able to estimate the ED episodes that may have been avoided through an ET3-like program, we applied the NYU Avoidable ED logic on 2019 Medicare FFS claims. Get access to our interactive analysis. |
