Contents tagged with new england journal of medicine
-
The rise of the ACO and lessons learned from the Medicare Physician Group Practice demonstration
As envisioned in the health reform law, the latest evolution of health delivery system reform involves consolidating the fragmented system of health care providers into efficient groups that take responsibility for a population of patients. Called accountable care organizations, this model boils down to three concepts: providing coordinated care by using all members of the health care team, measuring performance against evidence-based benchmarks, and reforming a payment system that currently rewards quantity over quality and reactive medicine over preventive medicine. The hope is that coordination, performance measurement, and payment reform will allow physicians to improve the quality of care for patients and reduce the cost.
Coordinating care to reduce cost isn’t a new concept. Some liken it to health maintenance organizations of the ’80s and ’90s, others to the patient-centered medical home. There is plenty of literature on both, and we won’t delve into them here.
If you’re looking for guidance on ACOs, one of the most useful sources is the five-year CMS pilot project that began in April 2005 and concluded in March 2010. (When lawmakers were crafting the health reform law, they had access to years 1 and 2. Now we also have 3 and 4, and are waiting for 5.)
more