Policy & oversight
A New CMS Model Brings Digital Chronic-Care Tools to Original Medicare, Starting This Month
The ACCESS model launched July 1, pairing roughly 200 participating organizations with traditional Medicare patients who have hypertension, prediabetes, kidney disease, and other chronic conditions.
By the Goodsurance editorial teamJuly 17, 2026
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation's ACCESS model, short for Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions, officially began its first performance period on July 1, 2026. The voluntary, 10-year initiative is designed to expand technology-supported care management for people enrolled in original fee-for-service Medicare, a group that has generally had fewer access points to coordinated digital-health services than Medicare Advantage members.
Nearly 200 organizations joined the first cohort, including digital health companies, mental health organizations, health systems, and physician groups. Participating organizations are tested on outcome-aligned payment, a model that rewards demonstrated health improvements rather than the completion of specific activities.
Original Medicare now has a tech-enabled chronic care program. Here is what it covers and who is in it.
Four clinical tracks define the program: early cardio-kidney-metabolic conditions, established cardio-kidney-metabolic conditions, musculoskeletal conditions, and behavioral health conditions. CMS plans to publish a public directory of ACCESS participants so that beneficiaries and their providers can search by condition and review risk-adjusted outcome metrics for each organization.
The model runs through June 2036, and CMS will accept rolling applications from new organizations throughout the program period. Analysts at KFF noted that the ACCESS launch is part of a broader CMS push to extend technology-enabled care to the nearly half of Medicare enrollees who remain in traditional Medicare.
In plain words
Starting July 1, 2026, a new CMS program called ACCESS lets people in regular Medicare, not Medicare Advantage, get help managing long-term health problems using digital tools. About 200 health groups signed up to offer services for conditions like high blood pressure, prediabetes, kidney disease, and depression. The program runs for 10 years. CMS will post a list of participating groups online so patients and doctors can find them.
Understand the basics first
Source: KFF
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