In 2012, 27 organizations will initiate participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program as Accountable Care Organizations. This level of participation reflects the response of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to criticism that the program as outlined in the proposed rule was overly burdensome, prescriptive, and too risky. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service made significant...

Health systems across the United States have started their journeys toward population health management and the future of accountable care. Models of population health management include patient-centered medical homes and private sector accountable care organizations (ACOs). Other models include public sector efforts, such as Physician Group Practice Transition Demonstrations, Medicare Health C...

On March 23, 2010, Section 3022 of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA) established the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). The MSSP depends on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to coordinate care for large groups of Medicare beneficiaries and reduce their overall costs while maintaining quality.' ACOs are a critical part of the PPACA. If they succeed, they could ...

MANY PEOPLE ARE CONCERNED THAT ACCOUNTable care organizations (ACOs) and other delivery system reforms in the Affordable Care Act will simply bring back the managed care days of the 1990s. These skeptics suspect that payment reforms to control high and increasing costs will simply lead to gate keeping and service denial rather than the promise of care redesign and coordination that removes unne...

By enacting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA), Congress provoked change in the status quo in American health care delivery and payment. Although challenged by conservative voices resistant to change, the ACA survived its recent constitutional challenge. Regardless of how Congress tries to amend the ACA in the future, one vestige of the ACA likely to remain at least in...