Physician partners, data systems, and assignment of risk all play an important part in the care and feeding of ACOs
Care coordination networks are a mainstay of the Affordable Care Act’s cost reduction goals. Accountable care organizations, or ACOs, are the most widely recognized of these networks, yet by no means is design of these business arrangements simple or straightforward.
In a basic sense, an ACO joins physicians and hospitals to collectively share financial and medical responsibility for a defined group of patients over a certain period of time. But the universe of possible structures is quite large.
For the past ten months on Health Affairs Blog, we’ve been discussing the evidence for different models of payment reform, examining everything from pay for performance to nonpayment. But no discussion of payment reform is complete without addressing benefit and network designs and how they can help or hinder various payment reforms. When the right payment method is paired with the right benefit and/or network design, they can work together to help reduce costs and improve care.
More than 50 attendees spent two days here learning how the power of data, better use of staff, and advances like telehealth can free up primary care physicians (PCPs) for their core mission: spending more time with patients whose complex conditions put them at risk for driving up healthcare costs. The ACO and Emerging Healthcare Coalition, a multistakeholder initiative of The American Journal of Managed Care, held its second live meeting October 16-17, 2014, at the Miami Marriott Biscayne Bay.
