Keeping within expenditure limits is a top priority for most ACOs for Medicare. That makes sense. Savings are the main distinguishing feature of an ACO arrangement, as opposed to straight Fee-for-Service reimbursement. ACOs that accept downside risk can’t afford to exceed the expenditure target. It’s in their best interest to create initiatives to cut costs […]
New ACO Playbook: Three Ultimate ACO Strategies to Keep Physician Practices Onboard
ACOs have zealously protected their favored status under Medicare Value-Based payment models, ensuring enough time for organizations to feel comfortable with financial risk and make investments in infrastructure. But if your own ACO is losing physicians to new equity-financed networks or to hospitals consolidating practices, more time does not help you. Primary care physicians are […]
Five Important Health Care Trends that Consumers Should Track
In the world of health care, change is never-ending. Politics, government regulation, scientific advancement, technology, and the economics and financing of health care foster shifts to reshape how care is delivered and how much it costs. Many of these shifts are completely invisible to us as health care consumers. But they also drive what is […]
ACOs: Scale Up Data to Achieve APM Success
Last updated July 27, 2022 More data is required for ACOs, now that Alternative Payment Models have moved to high gear. In this article we’ll take the mystery out of how to realistically gauge your data needs and scale up data, so that your ACO can be successful. We’ll show you how to identify the […]
New ACO Playbook: How ACOs Can Transform Clinical Care for Diabetes
An illuminating article about ACOs, featuring current and former MedPAC chairs’ perspectives, argues that savings have been constrained because too much is beyond ACOs’ purview to manage. Examples include both external restrictions (the exclusion of prescription drugs and provider fee payments from ACO control) and internal cultural or economic barriers (conflicts of interest that make […]
The Real Registry Advantage for ACOs Reporting Via APP: 5 Myths Debunked
The clock is winding down on the CMS Web Interface, and the reality of mandatory quality reporting via the Alternate Payment Model Performance Pathway (APP) for ACOs in 2022 is setting in. In order for ACOs to develop and execute their APP quality reporting plan in time to avoid catastrophe, it’s imperative to begin evaluating […]
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 […]
New ACO Playbook: Three Touchstones for ACO Viability
Some believe that an ACO’s leadership structure predicts its success. They point to differing savings results for physician-led versus hospital-led ACO shared savings models (MSSPs) to make their case. In particular, they make the argument that future Value-Based Care (VBC) policies should benefit the growth of successful physician-led ACOs, protecting them from policies that force […]
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 […]
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 […]