Accountable care organizations are beginning to develop at a rapid rate according to keynoter David Merritt, Managing Director, Leavitt Partners speaking at the National eHealth Collaborative conference held in Washington D.C.in partnership with InfoComm International.
Leavitt Partners (LP) in their Center for Accountable Care Intelligence provides insights on ACOs and how they are working in the U.S. healthcare system. LP conducted 60 plus in-depth interviews with ACO directors across the country, and found that ACO 2012 has left the station.
According to the speaker, since healthcare is trending towards risk sharing and developing care-coordinated models, stakeholders will play a bigger role, utilize more health IT, which will mean that the ACO model will progress much further in the near future.
CMS has been involved developing ACO Models. The CMS “Pioneer ACO Model” is designed for healthcare organizations and providers that are already experienced in coordinating care for patients across care settings. This ACO model enables provider groups to move more rapidly from a shared savings payment model to a population based payment model on a track consistent with but separate from the Medicare Shared Saving Program.
Participating ACOs will be held financially accountable for the care provided to their aligned beneficiaries. In addition, CMS will publicly report the performance of Pioneer ACOs on quality metrics, including patient experience ratings on their website.
