Accountable Care Organizations (ACO)
In response to the country's unsustainable growth in health care costs, policymakers have taken significant measures toward recalibrating and reforming our current fee-for-service, volume-based healthcare system. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) or "healthcare reform," among other initiatives, includes the creation of a Medicare Shared Savings program, to be implemented no later than 2012, that allows for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to participate in Medicare. ACOs are being recognized as a promising new payment model that could successfully start to realign our current payment system to better reward improvements in the efficiency of care delivery by supporting health care providers' efforts to improve quality and bend the cost curve with the distribution of shared savings.
Included below is a list of helpful resources and tools to inform providers, policymakers, foundations and others in their journey to understanding and implementing ACO models.
Click here for "What is an ACO?"
Links & Resources
Medicare’s Accountable Care Organization Regulations
Sara Rosenbaum, JD; Peter Shin, PhD, MPH
The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services Department of Health Policy, 2011
Rosenbaum and Shin explore how Medicare's ACO Regulations exclude medically underserved patients from effective participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Plan.
Proposed Rules for Accountable Care Organizations Participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program: What Do They Say?
Mark A. Zezza
The Commonwealth Fund, 2011
This report provides an interpretation of CMS' 429-page ACO proposed rule.
High Performance Accountable Care: Building on Success and Learning from Experience
Stuart Guterman, Stephen C. Schoenbaum, M.D., M.P.H., Karen Davis, Ph.D., Cathy Schoen, M.S., Anne-Marie J. Audet, M.D., M.Sc., Kristof Stremikis, M.P.P., and Mark A. Zezza, Ph.D.
The Commonwealth Fund, 2011
This report provides recommendations for ensuring the successful implementation and spread of ACOs to achieve the goals of a high performance health system.
Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP): Overview of Agency Proposal
Blair Childs
Premier, Inc., 2011
In this presentation, Blair Childs, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, Premier, Inc., provides a summary of the legal structure, Medicare Shared Savings Program, including
Launching Accountable Care Organizations - The Proposed Rule for the Medicare Shared Savings Program
Donald M. Berwick, M.D., M.P.P.
New England Journal of Medicine, 2011
In this article, Donald M. Berwick, MD, MPP, explores how ACOs may be the answer to the nation's fragmented healthcare system.
Better to Best: Value-Driving Elements of the Patient Centered Medical Home and Accountable Care Organizations
Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative
PCPCC, The Commonwealth Fund, Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Milbank Memorial Fund, 2011
This report summarizes the presentations, discussion and resulting consensus statements of a meeting of high-level health care stakeholders that took place in September 2010
ACO Toolkit
The Dartmouth Institute
The Brookings Institution, 2011
Produced by the Dartmouth Institute with support from The Brookings Institution, this report provides a path forward for the implementation of ACOs across the country.
Primary Care and Accountable Care — Two Essential Elements of Delivery-System Reform
Diane R. Rittenhouse, M.D., M.P.H., Stephen M. Shortell, Ph.D., M.P.H., M.B.A., and Elliott S. Fisher, M.D., M.P.H.
New England Journal of Medicine, 2009
In this commentary, Diane Rittenhouse, MD, MPH, and colleagues make the case for uniting the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) and the accountable care organization (ACO).
