The new frontier of strategic alliances in health care: New partnerships under accountable care organizations

Accountable care organizations and health care disparities.

UNDER SECTION 3022 OF THE AFFORDABLE CARE Act, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is tasked with developing and testing accountable care organizations (ACOs). The goal of ACOs is to group hospitals and physician practices together to facilitate and incentivize quality improvement and cost containment—critical steps for US health care. However, careful consideration and monitoring duri...

Accountable Care Organizations and Population Health Organizations.

Accountable care organizations (ACOs) and hospitals are investing in improving "population health," by which they nearly always mean the health of the "population" of patients "attributed" by Medicare, Medicaid, or private health insurers to their organizations. But population health can and should also mean "the health of the entire population in a geographic area." We present arguments for an...

Accountable care organizations.

Accountable care organizations.

Accountable care organizations: the case for flexible partnerships between health plans and providers.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the new Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation will guide a number of experimental programs in health care payment and delivery. Among the most ambitious of the reform models is the accountable care organization (ACO), which will offer providers economic rewards if they can reduce Medicare's cost growth in their communities. However, the dismal history of pro...