Accountable care organizations (ACOs) lowered Medicare spending by $755 million from 2013 to 2017, a new analysis found. The analysis, released Tuesday by analytics firm Dobson, DaVanzo & Associates, comes as ACOs are working to meet new federal regulations from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to make them take on financial risk…
As healthcare continues to shift toward value-based care, technology that boosts patient engagement, harnesses all available data for informed decision-making and enables more effective treatments will be increasingly vital for health systems to succeed. But limited resources and lack of reimbursement for these technologies remain significant barriers, according to the third annual Top of Mind for…
Launched by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in 2012, the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) is the largest Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) initiative and a core endeavor among efforts to transition from fee-for-service to alternative payment models. Existing evidence suggests modest success: ACOs have reduced spending a bit—even after accounting for bonus payments—and they appear to…
During the FLAACOS 2019 Conference John Schmitt, Executive VP of ACO ExhibitHall.com (ACOEH) and Dr. Brent Staton, CEO of CCHI ACO and ACOEH Advisory Board member, participated as panel members answering questions with respect to Value-Based strategies for ACOs. A summary of survey responses from ten other ACOEH Advisory Board members to the panel’s questions…
Although legislative pressure to transition to value-based care began several years ago, movement to alternative payment models (APMs) and changes to healthcare reimbursement have been slow, according to CHIME HealthCare’s Most Wired report. The report, recently made public, was based on responses to CHIME’s 2019 Most Wired survey. CHIME (the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives) conducts…
Americans are living longer, and the cost of healthcare is continuing to rise. In a 2012 article published in JAMA, founder of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and former CMS Administrator Donald Berwick, MD, suggested one third of spending on U.S. healthcare is wasted. Value-based care and population health are ways to address the rising costs…
In July, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a number of changes to its Quality Payment Program and the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS). Under existing MIPS policy, clinicians are evaluated based on performance in the four separate domains of quality, improvement activities, cost, and promoting interoperability. Stakeholders, including physicians and policy groups, have voiced concerns about…
The right care team has the potential to increase patient access, build on new care models, and make care more effective, meaning providers should better leverage advanced practice practitioners (APPs), said experts at Xtelligent Healthcare Media’s fourth annual Value-Based Care Summit in Boston. “APPs do really well serving areas that have decreased access, such as rural communities,…
Consumers are rapidly becoming aware that costs for health care coverage extend well beyond premiums, copays, and deductibles—costs such as additional charges for out-of-network physicians and facilities. There is also a growing understanding that different providers charge varying costs for services—and that other hidden variables can increase the final bill for treatment. But consumer health…
One of the well-attended panel sessions at the Fall 2019 meeting of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) was called “Mastering Chaos: Achieving High Quality of Care in Multi-TIN/Multi-EHR ACOs.” Like the expert panelists at the Washington, D.C., conference, Tom Boggs, president of Bridges Health Partners, knows a thing or two about overcoming the complexity…
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) saved Medicare $739.4 million in 2018, up from $314 million in savings the year before. Those savings were achieved despite policies that Rooke-Ley and colleagues argue in a recent Health Affairs Blog post disadvantage ACOs relative to Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. Their analysis concludes that ACOs cut costs…
Accountable care organizations have not done enough to reduce Medicare program spending, a new analysis from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission indicates. The networks of coordinated caregivers share risks, and any cost savings they incur. They do not appear to “have had any significant effect on referral patterns after hospitalization,” observed MedPAC senior analyst Evan…
