“The new model offers a new opportunity in accountable care – one that enables providers and beneficiaries greater opportunities to coordinate care and aims to attain the highest quality standards of care”, the agency said in an email. With the new group of ACOs, CMS will have 434 ACOs participating in the Shared Savings Program next year, serving more than 7.7 million beneficiaries.
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Officials announced 121 new “accountable care organizations”, networks of doctors and hospitals that collaborate to better serve patients with chronic medical conditions.
“ACOs are delivering better care, and they continue to show promising results on cost savings”, CMS explained. In addition to the announcement of the 21 ACOs participating in the new Next Generation model, HHS added that there are 100 new ACOs in the MSSP.
Six health systems switched from Pioneer to Next Generation status, meaning the Pioneer program now has been whittled down to only nine participants, after a rash of drop-outs. Beneficiaries seeing health care providers in ACOs always have the freedom to choose doctors inside or outside of the ACO. Medical office staff will be trained in population health management, including care coordination, quality improvement, annual wellness visits, and patient satisfaction, and can begin billing for these professional services.
Another part of Trinity, Lourdes Health Network, in South Jersey, has shifted its ACO, LHS Health Network, which manages care for 60,000 people, to a new ACO model, which will involve higher financial risk for the 21 operators selected for the program by Medicare.
This year also marks increased interest in taking on risk with 22 ACOs now in Track 2 or Track 3, which require organizations to take on more performance-based financial risk. “This initiative is focused on improving continuity and coordination of care consistent with our goals of assuring improved patient experience and better outcomes of care”.
These rural thought-leaders joined forces to form the first National Rural ACO (NRACO) and create the NRACO Services Corporation (NSC), which has been supporting rural Medicare ACOs with training, data, analytics, patient satisfaction surveys, and evidence-based medicine programs since 2014.
“Since the start of the ACO program in early 2012, thousands of health care providers have signed on to participate”.
Loyola Physician Partners, exclusively owned by Loyola University Health System, is a network which includes Loyola University Medical Center, Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, Palos Community Hospital and participating members of their medical staffs.
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The Health and Human Services secretary, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, has set a goal of tying 30 percent of Medicare payments to programs like ACOs by the end of this year. The Affordable Care Act provides tools, such as Medicare ACOs, to move our health care system toward one that rewards doctors based on the quality, not just the quantity, of care they give patients. The CMS Innovation Center is committed to transforming Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP to help deliver better care, and smarter spending for Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries, and healthier populations.
