A new risk assessment tool, funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in partnership with the ACC and the American Heart Association (AHA), may help to better predict the 10-year risk of developing atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASVCD) and how that risk may change over time as preventive treatments are initiated. The tool, published Nov. 4 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, is an extension of the ASCVD Pooled Cohort Equation first published in the 2013 AHA/ACC Guideline on Lifestyle Management to Reduce Cardiovascular Risk. The Million Hearts Model Longitudinal ASCVD Risk Assessment tool is a large-cluster randomized payment model test of value-based payment tested by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation to determine whether financially rewarding clinicians for reducing 10-year predicted risk for ASCVD across their patient population is an effective way to reduce first-time heart attacks and strokes. “This tool will help clinicians and patients with shared-decision making and will aid in the understanding of how the ‘ABCS’ may help to reduce risk,” said Donald M. Lloyd-Jones, MD, ScM, FACC, chair of the writing committee. Read more on ACC.org.