In April of 2011, the Commonwealth Fund released a study that provides recommendations for ensuring the successful implementation and spread of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to achieve the goals of a high performance health system. Here is the Overview and Executive Summary:
Overview
A key provision of the Affordable Care Act is the establishment of the Medicare Shared Savings Program, which provides incentives for improved quality and efficiency to a new category of provider—the accountable care organization (ACO). The program, slated to begin in January 2012, rewards groups of providers who agree to collaborate to offer more accountable, effective, and efficient care with a share of the savings they achieve. While the prospect of participating in this initiative has generated a groundswell of interest and activity among providers, many issues need to be addressed about the methods that will be used to determine how that accountability is to be achieved, assessed, and rewarded. This report provides recommendations for ensuring the successful implementation and spread of ACOs to achieve the goals of a high performance health system.
Executive Summary
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (Affordable Care Act) establishes a new category of provider within the Medicare program—the accountable care organization (ACO)—with rules for provider participation and principles for sharing the savings that ensue from this new form of health care delivery. A broad framework is specified in the law and more details have been laid out in proposed rules released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), but whether the promise of this new payment and delivery model is realized will depend both on the implementation decisions made over time by CMS and the willingness and ability of health care providers, other payers, and the general public to respond to this opportunity to improve the performance of the health care system.
This report by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System (Commission): 1) sets forth the rationale for creating ACOs; 2) describes several promising types of ACO models that should be considered and evaluated as part of an effort to facilitate adaptability and spread of accountability for quality and cost to as wide a segment of the U.S. health care delivery system as possible; and 3) concludes with a set of Commission recommendations on what ought to be expected from ACOs and how to ensure their successful implementation and spread, both immediately and over time. Although the Commission’s recommendations are addressed, for the most part, to CMS, the report also is intended to offer information and guidance to providers, payers, and patients who will be forming, and interacting with, ACOs.
See the report on the Commonwealth Fund website.
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