ACO Tests May Start Next Year

Abstract

Just about the only thing that experts can agree on about accountable care organizations right now is that the idea behind them is still in its infancy.“It's not exactly clear that, when people are talking about ACOs, [everyone] has the same thing in mind,” said Dr. Francis J. Crosson, senior fellow in the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy in Oakland, Calif., and a member of a task force on ACOs that was recently convened by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA).In general, ACOs would allow primary care physicians, specialists, and hospitals to form a partnership to provide care to a group of patients. The idea is that all the providers would work together to improve quality and manage costs and that they would share in any savings that were produced as a result. Participating in an ACO will mean shifting a system's focus from an acute, episodic care model to a prevention and wellness model, according to Dr. Eric Bieber, chief medical officer at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Northeast Ohio.The Medicare shared-savings ACO program is set to launch in January 2012. ACOs may also end up being part of testing performed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, a new office created under the law, beginning in January 2011.In the near term, there is likely to be a range of ACO models, Dr. Crosson predicted. Some will be tightly constructed around integrated delivery systems in which physicians and hospitals are part of the same economic entity. Others will be looser models that bring together a group of physicians and hospitals that are financially separate from one another, he said. Just about the only thing that experts can agree on about accountable care organizations right now is that the idea behind them is still in its infancy. “It's not exactly clear that, when people are talking about ACOs, [everyone] has the same thing in mind,” said Dr. Francis J. Crosson, senior fellow in the Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy in Oakland, Calif., and a member of a task force on ACOs that was recently convened by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). In general, ACOs would allow primary care physicians, specialists, and hospitals to form a partnership to provide care to a group of patients. The idea is that all the providers would work together to improve quality and manage costs and that they would share in any savings that were produced as a result. Participating in an ACO will mean shifting a system's focus from an acute, episodic care model to a prevention and wellness model, according to Dr. Eric Bieber, chief medical officer at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Northeast Ohio. The Medicare shared-savings ACO program is set to launch in January 2012. ACOs may also end up being part of testing performed by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, a new office created under the law, beginning in January 2011. In the near term, there is likely to be a range of ACO models, Dr. Crosson predicted. Some will be tightly constructed around integrated delivery systems in which physicians and hospitals are part of the same economic entity. Others will be looser models that bring together a group of physicians and hospitals that are financially separate from one another, he said.