Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable

Restore the Global and Professional Direct Contracting (ACO REACH) model

Not started

464 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“The Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC, rebranded as the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health or ACO REACH) model.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The record moved the other way. CMS has announced ACO REACH's successor, and it is not GPDC: the LEAD (Long-term Enhanced ACO Design) Model is "set to launch following the conclusion of ACO REACH at the end of 2026", runs 2027-01-01 to 2036-12-31 on a ten-year performance period, and is a differently designed model aimed at smaller, rural and independent practices with two voluntary risk-sharing options. So the descendant of the model this ask wants restored is itself ending on schedule, and what replaces it is new. The ACO REACH page adds that the model "will not be accepting new applications" for its remaining duration. Both pages carry a Page Last Modified stamp of 2026-08-18, which is what dates this event.

  2. Not started

    CMS acted on this model inside the window and did not restore GPDC. Its dated Innovation Insight of 2025-06-03 announces changes to ACO REACH's financial methodology from PY 2026 "to improve model sustainability", and describes the model as the one that followed "its revamp and transition from the Global Professional Direct Contracting Model in 2023" — CMS's own account of GPDC as a thing transitioned away from, being adjusted rather than reinstated. Moved nearby, not toward the ask. The model page records the same facts: ACO REACH "was redesigned from the Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC) Model, which ran for two performance years (PY 2021 through PY 2022)", and runs PY 2023 through PY 2026 with 74 participating ACOs in PY 2026. Negative search recorded in `docs/research/ch-14.md` under the round-2 (ticket 16) cluster searches.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • Sources: https://www.cms.gov/priorities/innovation/innovation-models/aco-reach — CMS ACO REACH Model page, read in full on 2026-08-28 and again on 2026-09-06.
  • Correction, 2026-09-06. An earlier check recorded that this page “carries no publication date”, and that was generalized to all cms.gov model pages. Neither is true: every Innovation Center page carries a “Page Last Modified” stamp in its footer. That is what unblocked this item and #1256, and it is why both now carry dated Evidence rather than prose.
  • Federal Register API: “Global and Professional Direct Contracting” → 3 documents (the CY 2026 and CY 2027 Physician Fee Schedule rules and their proposals), “Realizing Equity, Access, and Community Health” → 3 (the same plus the Alternative Payment Model Updates/IOTA rules). None reinstates GPDC.
  • The Innovation Center’s geographic-direct-contracting-model page survives in the sitemap as an archived model; that model was canceled in 2021 and is not the object of this ask.
  • HHS regulatory agenda, checked 2026-09-01. Checked against the full HHS agenda on reginfo.gov (183 active RINs in the 2026 Unified Agenda, published 2026-08-14), not the abbreviated version the Federal Register prints. The nearest entry is recorded here. It does not name this ask’s object, so the Status did not change: an agenda entry counts as an attempt only when it names what the ask asks for.
    • CMS’s three payment-model entries — 0938-AV65 (IOTA update, CMS-5544), 0938-AV91 (CMS-5548, NPRM 07/2026) and 0938-AV96 (CMS-5549, NPRM 10/2026) — are an organ-transplant model and two unnamed new mandatory models under section 1115A. “Direct Contracting”, “GPDC” and “ACO REACH” return 0 across all 183 entries.
Action
reinstate
Object
Global and Professional Direct Contracting (GPDC/ACO REACH) model
ID
1257