Medicare's New ACCESS Payment Model Creates First Government Reimbursement Mechanism for AI-Driven Care

CMS's new ACCESS (Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions) program is a 10-year payment model that for the first time creates a government reimbursement mechanism for AI agents that monitor patients between visits. Pair Team, a California-based company with roughly 850 clinical professionals, was accepted into ACCESS and has deployed a voice AI agent called Flora as its primary patient-facing interface, available 24/7 for intake, referrals, and check-ins. Pair Team's community-integrated model has peer-reviewed evidence showing significant reductions in avoidable emergency and inpatient utilization. The program goes live July 5, 2026, addressing a fundamental gap: traditional Medicare reimburses based on clinician time spent, with no mechanism to pay for AI monitoring between visits.