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Accountable care organizations
An accountable care organization (ACO) is a group of doctors, hospitals and health care providers who work together to provide higher-quality coordinated care to their patients, while helping to slow health care cost growth. It is characterized by a payment and care delivery model that seeks to tie provider reimbursements to quality metrics and reductions in the total cost of care for an assigned population of patients.
The ACO may use a range of payment models capitation, fee-for-service or bundled payments, etc.). The ACO is accountable to the patients and the third-party payer for the quality, appropriateness and efficiency of the health care provided. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), an ACO is “an organization of health care providers that agrees to be accountable for the quality, cost, and overall care of Medicare beneficiaries who are enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program who are assigned to it.”
The success of the ACO model in fostering clinical excellence while simultaneously controlling costs depends on its ability to “incentivize hospitals, physicians, post-acute care facilities, and other providers involved to form linkages and facilitate coordination of care delivery, according to A National Strategy to put Accountable Care into Practice. Health Affairs by Dr. Mark McClellan, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). By increasing care coordination, ACOs can help reduce unnecessary medical care and improve health outcomes, leading to a decrease in utilization of acute care services.
Healthcare quality delivered by an ACO is defined by CMS via five domains. They are “patient/caregiver experience, care coordination, patient safety, preventative health, and at-risk population/frail elderly health.”
An ACO’s patient population will primarily consist of Medicare beneficiaries. In larger and more integrated ACOs, the patient population may also include those who are homeless and uninsured. Patients may play a role in the healthcare they receive from their ACOs by participating in their ACO’s decision-making processes.
Laboratory Offers Early Lessons in Positioning for Success with ACOs
CEO SUMMARY: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are already leading the shift from fee-for-service reimbursement to population payment. ACOs are leading healthcare’s evolution to preventive care, wellness, and better management of patients with chronic disease. This evolution will re…
Lab Landscape Changing as ACOs Get Started
FOR THOSE OF YOU INTERESTED IN HOW the development of accountable care organizations (ACOs) in a community causes a realignment among providers and the clinical laboratories serving them, I offer you the example of Genesis Health System in Davenport, Iowa. As you will read …
Hospital System Acquires Labs In ACO Strategy
CEO SUMMARY: Moving to deliver services as an accountable care organization (ACO), Genesis Health System of Davenport, Iowa, has acquired the laboratory assets in two hospitals previously operated by Metropolitan Medical Laboratory, PLC, a lab company owned by local patho…
Health Insurers See Big Increase in Lab Utilization
CEO SUMMARY: In a recent public workshop, managed care executives revealed that the annual cost of outpatient laboratory testing is increasing at twice the rate of all other medical services. One big driver in the increased spending on lab testing is increased utilization…
Executive War College Sessions Center Upon Three Trends
CEO SUMMARY: There was an interesting blend of anxiety and optimism as a record crowd gathered in New Orleans last week for the 18th annual Executive War College on Laboratory and Pathology Management. The anxiety was rooted in the shrinking prices paid by payers for lab testing services….
Anticipating Washington’s Next Blows to Lab Testing
CEO SUMMARY: With the advent of 2013, almost every lab was responding to some type of price cut. Clinical labs are dealing with the sequential, multi-year cuts to the Medicare Part B Lab Test Price Schedule. Anatomic pathology labs are still adjusting to the expiration of the TC Grandfath…
ACO Numbers Increase, Now Cover 10% of Nation
CEO SUMMARY: A recent report by a consulting firm that tracks the ACO industry indicates that, as of the end of 2012, ACOs of all types involved—in some manner—between 25 and 31 million patients. Moreover, Medicare and private ACOs are located in regions where 45% of the population of…
Road Map to Most Pressing Trends In Healthcare
YOU SHOULD FIND THIS ISSUE OF THE DARK REPORT TO BE A USEFUL ROAD MAP to several of the major trends now confronting clinical labs and pathology groups across the United States. One trend involves payer efforts to control the cost of lab tests. A second trend centers upon accountable…
Lawyers Share Insights about ACO Contracting
CEO SUMMARY: Most pathologists have yet to be involved in any substantial contractual negotiations that would allow them to assume a significant role in accountable care organizations (ACOs). Instead, hospitals and health systems are putting the building blocks in place by acquiring physi…
Boosting the Lab’s Role in Collaborative Care
CEO SUMMARY: Collaborative care is an essential element of accountable care organizations (ACO) and other emerging models of integrated clinical care. At MedCentral Health System, one clinical chemist has held a key place on the physician team that develops order sets and clinical alerts….
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Volume XXXII, No. 6 – April 21, 2025
Now that a federal judge has vacated the FDA’s LDT rule, The Dark Report analyzes the judgement and notes the various steps the FDA could take in response. Also, lab testing at pharmacies is proving to be less successful than was once anticipated.
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