Roji Intel Blog

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ACOsRiskValue-Based Health Care
July 14, 2021

New ACO Playbook: 3 Approaches to Scale Up Data Sufficiency for Value-Based Care

Like every health care organization, your struggles with data may appear never-ending. Like money, there never seems to be enough of it. In this article we’ll take the mystery out of how to realistically gauge your data needs, identify the links between what you want to accomplish as an ACO or medical group in value-based payment models and those data requirements, and help you target your data efforts. Data Needs Have Scaled Up with Value-Based Care When providers were focused on meeting patient volume targets, operations systems like billing and scheduling provided an adequate basis for tracking volume and revenues.…
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ACOsAPM Performance PathwayMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)RiskValue-Based Health Care
May 24, 2021

New ACO Playbook: To Show Standout Performance, ACOs Must Rethink Quality

The health care media are full of articles asserting that ACOs have proven their mettle in delivering health care of highest quality. Citing ACO quality reporting results, CMS and advocates point to the majority of ACOs passing CMS quality standards, and that ACOs are improving their results on quality measures over time. The vast majority of ACOs meet quality measures, with 92 percent passing the qualification for shared savings in 2019. But is quality performance a distinguishing feature that ACOs can use competitively—and sustain the payment model’s long-term prospects? To earn permanency and competitive advantage, ACOs must show that the…
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ACOsEpisodes of CareFuture of Health CareRiskValue-Based Health Care
April 29, 2021

New ACO Playbook: Can Coordination of Care Save Enough Money to Save ACOs?

Central to the controversy about ACOs’ potential for Value-Based Care is whether they actually save enough money and reduce costs fast enough. Researchers and advocates have produced various independent studies of ACO savings, the most generous estimating $1.8 billion in cumulative savings over the first three years of the program, almost double CMS estimates. Many others, however, dismiss the small proportion of savings—at a few percentage points—relative to total Medicare spending. The previous CMS administration was clearly dubious about the shared savings model. It favored payment models that put providers at financial risk to increase cost reduction incentives, even though…
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ACOsRiskValue-Based Health Care
April 14, 2021

Why ACOs Need a New Playbook

A lot has happened in health care since 2012, when final rules permitted provider-organized ACOs to be the driving force of Value-Based Care under the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA). As we pass the ACA’s eleventh anniversary, a dwindling number of Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) ACOs are entering a new phase marked by higher expectations and more difficult economics. To succeed in this challenging environment, ACOs will need different tools going forward than first contemplated, because of competition, both from providers under new value-based payment models and from Medicare Advantage plans. They also face more skepticism. Although rule changes…
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ACOsBehavioral HealthDirect ContractingRiskValue-Based Health Care
April 5, 2021

5 Value-Based Behavioral Health Strategies for ACOs and Medical Group Models

For ACOs and Direct Contracting Medical Groups adopting value-based payment models, behavioral health is often overlooked. But your patients’ unmet behavioral health issues are a big cost driver for emergency care and inpatient admissions, and they compound risk factors in disease. They also influence your patients’ adherence to treatment plans. You may believe this is a problem you can’t resolve because behavioral health is beyond the boundaries of your participating network. Even so, you need to be aware of a significant emerging trend: integrating behavioral health in primary care. The difference between physical medicine’s approach to disease versus behavioral health…
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ACOsFuture of Health CareMerit-Based Incentive Payment System (MIPS)RiskValue-Based Health Care
December 9, 2020

7 New Value-Based Health Care Directions You’ll See in 2021

Everyone who's reeling from 2020 is hoping for light in 2021. Health care, especially—systems, hospitals, clinical practices and their providers—wants the pain to stop. What might lie ahead for health care next year? Here's what we're thinking about the near future, and what you should watch for in 2021. 1. Health care providers will be fortified. If one thing is clear from the election results, it's that relief is coming to help providers on the pandemic’s front line. Money won't be free-flowing, but it will be targeted to areas of financial distress. We should expect initiatives to centralize purchasing and…
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ACOsEpisodes of CareRiskSpecialty Physicians
November 20, 2020

Five Strategies to Help ACOs and Independent Specialists Create Common Ground on Data Sharing

To successfully manage the 40 to 60 percent of costs of care driven by specialty physicians, your ACO must overcome one major obstacle when you begin to address specialty costs: the lack of information to guide your actions. Although ACOs have claims data to calculate total costs per ACO patient and totals for specialty services, you can't compare those costs. Why? Claims are not organized into cases or "episodes of care" that include all providers and services so that it is easier to compare case costs between patients or providers. More importantly, the small number of Medicare patients seeing any…
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ACOsBundled PaymentsEpisodes of CareRiskSpecialty ServicesValue-Based Health Care
October 22, 2020

Five Ways to Manage Specialty Costs Without Bundled Payments

When health plans and Medicare propose controlling the cost of specialty care, expect that bundled payments will be the next suggested solution. With the introduction of every new specialty-focused payment model, an episode-based bundled payment model is involved. But let's say you’re an ACO with no interest in bundled payments arrangements. You may not even think you can put the topic on the table with specialists. Or, if you are a health system or specialty practice that is trying to control total cost of care for competitive reasons, perhaps you aren't yet willing to accept fixed fees. How can you…
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ACOsEpisodes of CareRiskSpecialty ServicesVideo
October 14, 2020

Video: How to Improve Specialty Spending for ACOs

Referral networks drive a huge part of ACO spending. Cut through the data to find how you can reduce costs through actionable information. Learn more about how your ACO should evaluate specialty referrals and costs using seven key analytics for procedural episodes of care. Founded in 2002, Roji Health Intelligence guides health care systems, providers and patients on the path to better health through Solutions that help providers improve their value and succeed in Risk.
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ACOsEpisodes of CareRiskSpecialty Services
October 9, 2020

Seven Key Analytics to Direct Your ACO’s Specialty Strategies for Risk

As ACOs become subject to Risk arrangements, especially global capitation, specialty costs should be one of the first areas to examine for long-term savings potential. Optimal use of specialists and engagement with specialty providers will prove essential for cost management. This is new territory for providers who have decentralized most decisions about specialty referrals and subsequent specialty medical decisions. Leverage for collaboration and examination depends on the ACO’s strength position vis a vis specialty business and competition among specialists for ACO referrals. A primary ACO strategy for cost performance, therefore, must start with its market strategy. Your ACO Competition, Medicare…
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