BACKGROUND The accountable care organization (ACO) model being adopted across the United States aims to improve patient care and reduce costs. Little is known about whether commercial ACO contracts include accountability for prescription drug spending or how ACOs are engaging outpatient pharmacies and managing prescription drug use. OBJECTIVE To explore how ACOs are addressing drug spending a...

SPURRING THE CREATION OF ACCOUNTABLE CARE ORganizations (ACOs) was a signature initiative in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA). To achieve potential efficiencies by having health care delivery coordinated by multiple health care entities (eg, hospitals, physician groups, clinics, health care systems), the act invites such entities to integrate in ACOs and instructs ...

10.1056/nejmp1013404 nejm.org e1(1) system. In almost every region of the country, hospitals and physicians are forming (or talking about forming) accountable care organizations (ACOs) and entering into other arrangements designed to integrate care, manage chronic conditions, and enable evidence-based practices. Critical to the achievement of these ends are the regulations and guidance soon to ...

OBJECTIVE To develop an exploratory taxonomy of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to describe and understand early ACO development and to provide a basis for technical assistance and future evaluation of performance. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING Data from the National Survey of Accountable Care Organizations, fielded between October 2012 and May 2013, of 173 Medicare, Medicaid, and commerci...

Rapid medical care cost growth is one of the primary economic and fiscal challenges that policy makers wrestle with in the Unites States. Nationwide, medical expenses have grown at a rate approximately double the rate of inflation over the past two decades, in part due to price increases, in part due to quantity increases, and in part due to the introduction of new medical technologies. Medical...

The health care delivery system is changing rapidly, with providers forming patient-centered medical homes and exploring the creation of accountable care organizations. Enactment of the Affordable Care Act will likely accelerate these changes. Significant delivery system reforms will simultaneously affect the structures, capabilities, incentives, and outcomes of the delivery system. With so man...

Health care reform is directed toward improving access and quality while containing costs. An essential part of this is improvement of pricing models to more accurately reflect the costs of providing care. Transparent prices that reflect costs are necessary to signal information to consumers and producers. This information is central in a consumer-driven marketplace. The rapid increase in high ...