Accountable
Care
Organizations
HEALTHCARE REFORM
Accountable Care Organizations
Comparative Effectiveness
Accountable Care Organizations
SMI’s Accountable Care Organization Resource Listing
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital organization and the topic being discussed was accountable care organizations (ACOs). The doctor sitting next to me leaned over and asked me what an ACO was. This is a board member representing 800 physicians in contract negotiations with insurance companies…
Title: Test-driving an ACO; Norton Healthcare, Humana already seeing results in first year of pilot project
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110905/MAGAZINE/110909992#
Overview: One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset. …
Title: Strategic Options: It's Not ACO or Nothing
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 9/29/2011
http://www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/LED-270490/Strategic-Options-Its-Not-ACO-or-Nothing.html
Overview: The national dialogue surrounding accountable care organizations seems to include a barrage of discussion pieces around the pros, cons, and requirements of becoming an ACO. While an important consideration for many, it is critical to take into account a much broader spectrum of strategic options that lay before healthcare organizations even in this era of reform. …
Title: De-fragging health care: 'Accountable Care Organizations' could revolutionize medicine
Source: Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Date: 7/13/2011
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11194/1159933-109-0.stm
Overview: Few would disagree that the fragmented American system of delivering and paying for health care is dysfunctional. Physicians and hospitals get paid by the office visit, hospital admission or diagnostic test, and nobody is held economically responsible for the outcome of patient care from start to finish
Title: Will ACOs create a revolution in American healthcare?
Source: Miami Herald
Date: 8/3/2011
http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/08/03/2344316/will-acos-create-a-revolution.html
Overview:
Last year, when blocked arteries landed Syed Abdul Qadri, 68, in Jackson Memorial Hospital, the public facility was struggling with some tough statistics: One in four of its heart patients was being readmitted within 30 days, a performance that put Jackson in the bottom quarter of hospitals in America.
Title: The State of the ASC Industry -- Webinar Provides Key Thoughts on ASC Industry, Governmental Impact and Market Transactions
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/3/2011
Overview: …After encountering a flurry of criticism when it introduced proposed rules for ACOs a few months ago, the administration is rethinking its plan and implementation may slow down. "The most optimistic thing you could say about ACOs is that they won't move that fast," he said. …
Title: Role of Surgery Centers Under the Accountable Care Organization Model: Q&A With Scott Becker of McGuireWoods
Source: Becker’s ACS Review
Date: 8/2/2011
Title: Cost savings in ACOs winning provider support
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 7/25/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/cost-savings-acos-winning-provider-support/2011-07-25
Overview: Although healthcare executives may be split on their support or opposition to accountable care organizations (ACOs), the touted costs savings attached to ACOs may be winning over the provider groups, reports USA Today.
Title: ACOs adopting different payment approaches under PPACA, says report
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 7/27/2011
Overview: Most accountable care organizations, spurred by the Medicare Shared Savings Program, are taking four different approaches to creating new payment models according to a new report sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation promoting a better healthcare system. …
Title: Norton, Humana Commercial ACO Notches Cost Savings
Source: Health Leaders Media
Date: 8/8/2011
Overview: In its most simplified form, the idea behind accountable care organizations was to get the healthcare providers and payers in a community to work together to improve care while also reducing its cost. Much of that purity has been lost in the noise of the ACO movement, but in Louisville, KY, Norton Healthcare and Humana are continuing the journey. …
Title: Implementing the Affordable Care Act: What Role for Accountable Care Organizations?
Source: Balkinization
Date: 9/29/2011
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2011/09/implementing-affordable-care-act-what.html
Overview: As Kevin Outterson has noted, even if the individual mandate is ultimately declared unconstitutional, the rest of health care reform is very likely to survive judicial challenge. Political plans to defund critical aspects of US health finance are likely a bigger threat to the success of the ACA than the Supreme Court. …
Title: Supporting ACO’s
Source: Health Management Technology
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.healthmgttech.com/ebook/A1tmfo/HMT-201109/resources/24.htm
Overview: There is no question that this is a time of uncertainty for healthcare organizations, with many diffi cult questions being raised in regard to health informa- tion exchange (HIE), accountable care organizations (ACOs) and more. Two things, however, are clear. The fi rst is that specifi c outcomes, quality processes and cost-performance standards for value-based programs will continually evolve. The second is that provider organizations will have to adapt to stay in business. …
Title: Sharp HealthCare Medical Groups Recognized for "Elite" Care
Source: BioPortfolio
Date: 9/20/2011
Overview: Sharp HealthCare's affiliated medical groups -- Sharp Rees-Stealy and Sharp Community Medical Group -- were awarded Elite Status, the highest possible designation for quality care given by the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG) as part of its 2011 Standards of Excellence program. CAPG is one of the nation's largest professional organizations of managed care physician groups. …
Title: Healthcare changes ahead: while challenges to the new law continue, regulatory programs are taking effect
Source: Florida Trend via HighBeam Research
Date: 9/1/2011
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-265871895.html
Overview: When President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection d Affordable Care Act into law March of 2010, many issues remained to be fleshed out about how the sweeping healthcare reforms would be implemented. Prom new programs and regulations, to sweeping reforms, it was clear the law would bring many changes. Since the law was immediately (and continues to be) challenged in the courts, many of these questions still remain. …
Title: Partnerships Change Healthcare Landscape
Source: Detroit News
Date: 9/3/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110903/BIZ/109030319/Partnerships-change-health-care-landscape
Overview: In less than two years, Dearborn-based Oakwood Healthcare Inc. has added more than 50 doctors to its Oakwood Physician Network, an initiative to recruit and hire private practice doctors into the system. It's just one technique hospitals and health systems in the region are using as they prepare for changes in the way the federal government reimburses for Medicare services as part of health care reform. Some of the changes will reward hospitals for being better aligned with doctors.
Title: Fast growing companies: Changes, innovation in health care driving growth
Source: North Bay Business Journal
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/39533/fast-growing-companies-health-care/
Overview: As the health care landscape across the North Bay — indeed, across much of the country — undergoes rapid transformation, many organizations are already growing in anticipation of the changes that lay ahead. From physician networks, to drug makers to physician insurers, North Bay companies are experiencing growth — and quickly …
Title: ACOs taking hold in California for cost savings
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/5/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/acos-taking-hold-california-cost-savings/2011-09-06
Overview: Like the early pioneers of the West, California is proving to be a hot spot of the accountable care organization (ACO) experiment. Under healthcare reform, hospitals, providers, and insurers are taking a stake in the collaborative care initiative with goals of cost savings and improved care. …
Title: CIGNA and Health Choice launch collaborative accountable care initiative
Source: Datamonitor
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: CIGNA, a global health service and financial company, and Health Choice, a physician hospital organization, affiliated with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, have launched a collaborative accountable care initiative to expand patient access to health care, improve care coordination, and achieve the 'triple aim' of improved health outcomes, lower total medical costs and increased patient satisfaction. …
Title: Health Plans and Providers Partnering to Advance Accountable Care
Source: Pharmacy Choice
Date: 9/8/2011
http://www.pharmacychoice.com/news/article.cfm?Article_ID=779766
Overview: New health care delivery and payment models in the private sector are being shaped by active collaboration between health insurance plans and providers, according to a new study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) that appears in the September edition of Health Affairs. The article found that not all providers are equally prepared to enter into accountable care arrangements and that flexibility and the technical assistance and support of health plans will be key to the success of these arrangements …
Title: Oncology Poses Tough Issues for ACOs; Views on Solutions Differ
Source: AIS Health
Date: 9/2011
http://aishealth.com/archive/nabn0911-04
Overview: When it comes to medical specialties for which the issues involving Medicare ACO participation are particularly difficult, oncology may lead the pack. Among the complications are that many oncologists manage cancer patients but aren’t considered the primary care physicians (PCPs) for them, and that cancer treatment costs are extremely high and figure to keep rising based on the promising new therapies in the pipeline. …
Title: Women's service lines to boom under ACOs
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/21/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/womens-service-lines-boom-under-acos/2011-09-21 Overview: …"Gender-specific care for women is just now starting to be explored," said Mary Anne Graf, vice president of Women's and Children's Services at Bon Secours Richmond Health System, in a HealthLeaders Media article. "It has significant potential in an ACO environment." …
Title: Hospital Strength Index™ Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrong™ Top 100 Hospitals Named
Source: IVantage
Date: 9/21/2011
Overview: Hospital Strength IndexTM Launched to Address Demands of the New Healthcare; Inaugural List of HealthStrongTM Top 100 Hospitals Named…
Title: Medicine on the move: Wireless computing inside & outside your practice
Source: Modern Medicine
Date: 9/10/2011
http://www.modernmedicine.com/modernmedicine/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=739133
Overview: Get ready to innovate. Soon you may find that to compete and operate within medical home communities and accountable care organizations (ACOs), you will have to integrate mobile healthcare technologies into your practice. How will this affect the way you practice? …
Title: United States: Accountable Care Organizations and Medicare's Shared Savings Program
Source: Mondaq
Date: 9/22/2011
Overview: With the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Service's recent release of the proposed rules for the implementation of § 3022 of the Affordable Care Act relating to the formation, compensation and governance of Accountable Care Organizations (ACO's), and the requirement that the Secretary of Health and Human Services establishes guidelines for ACO's by January 1, 2012, healthcare providers are scurrying to understand precisely what an ACO is, and what they will need to do be eligible for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) payments. …
Title: Employers look to ACOs to help increase value, keep health costs in check
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: A new report from human resources consulting firm Aon Hewitt and healthcare consulting firm Polakoff Boland says employer interest in accountable care organizations is ramping up as they seek new ways to continue offering healthcare benefits to employees. …
Title: Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center Selects PatientPoint to Support Its Mission to Become an Accountable Care Organization
Source: BusinessWire
Date: 9/27/2011
Overview: …PatientPoint™, a provider of care coordination and revenue cycle management solutions, today announced it has been selected by Meadowlands Hospital and Medical Center (MHMC) to provide care coordination services. …
Listed below are links to various industry articles, papers, and other resources related to accountable care organizations and related healthcare reform issues. This listing will be periodically updated with help from experts at FTI Healthcare who are working with the SMI Team. Please contact SMI to recommend additional resources not currently listed.
Title: Details for: BUNDLED PAYMENTS FOR CARE IMPROVEMENT INITIATIVE
Source: CMS
Date: 8/23/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is working in partnership with providers to develop models of bundling payments through the Bundled Payments initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Through the Bundled Payments initiative, providers have great flexibility in selecting conditions to bundle, developing the health care delivery structure, and determining how payments will be allocated among participating providers.
Title: U.S. encourages bundling Medicare payments
Source: Reuters
Date: 8/23/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/23/us-cms-innovation-idUSTRE77M5NR20110823
Overview: The U.S. agency that runs government health insurance is launching a program that would bundle insurance payments for multiple procedures in the hope of improving patient care while also saving money.
Title: Betting on bundling; Providers leery of ACOs look into alternative
Source: Modern Healthcare
Date: 8/29/2011
http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20110829/MAGAZINE/308299960#
Overview: For providers hesitant to board the ACO car of the coordinated-care train, there is room in the section reserved for bundled payments—which experts say could offer a less bumpy ride to the same destination.
Title: Anesthesia Business Consultants Alerts Providers to the Medicare Bundled Payment Initiative
Source: Business Wire
Date: 8/31/2011
Overview: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has just announced the Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Initiative. On August 23, 2011, CMS invited providers to apply to help test and develop four different models of bundling payments. Letters of intent and completed applications are due on September 22nd, October 21st or November 4th, depending on the payment model.
Title: CMS Initiatives for Bundled Payments to Improve Care
Source: Foley & Lardner LLP
Date: 8/20/2011
http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=8465
Overview: "Bundled payment" is one of the health reform strategies that received considerable attention during the health reform debates. Under this payment model, a group of providers (potentially including hospitals, physicians, and post-acute care providers) receives a lump-sum payment for all services required to care for a beneficiary in connection with a specific diagnosis or condition. …
Title: A Speedier Launch for Medicare Bundled Payments?
Source: The Commonwealth Fund
Date: 7/18/2011
Overview: Accountable care organizations (ACOs) may have grabbed plenty of attention when it comes to coordinated care in Medicare. But the ACO program's cousin—payment bundling—is also on the way, and maybe sooner than expected.
Title: Sg2 to Showcase Growth and Value Solutions at National Accountable Care Organization Conference
Source: Reuters
Date: 6/27/2011
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/27/idUS139455+27-Jun-2011+MW20110627
Overview: Sg2, a health care intelligence and information services company, will exhibit at the National Accountable Care Organization (ACO) Summit on June 27-28 in Washington, DC.
Title: Researchers: Sharing Risk with Providers Risky
Source: National Underwriter Life & Health
Date: 7/25/2011
Overview: A team of researchers led by Suzanne Delbanco of Catalyst for Payment Reform (CPR), San Francisco, a think tank funded in part by West Coast employers, writes about the possible challenges facing organizers of the new Medicare “accountable care organization” (ACO) program in a report commissioned by the Commonwealth Fund, New York.
Title: Many employers interested in ACOs to decrease healthcare costs and increase value-based approaches
Source: Healthcare Finance News
Date: 9/26/2011
Overview: Employers nationwide are beginning to explore the "Accountable Care Organization" (ACO)* model as a viable option to continue offering employer-sponsored benefits, while reducing cost and improving quality of care, according to a report issued today by Aon Hewitt…
Title: 'Poster Boys' Take A Pass On Pioneer ACO Program
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system…
Title: Who will be the final 30 ACO Pioneers?
Source: Fierce Healthcare
Date: 9/14/2011
http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/who-will-be-final-30-aco-pioneers/2011-09-14
Overview: With accountable care organization (ACO) Pioneers to launch before the year's end, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week, the industry is waiting to hear who the final 30 ACO Pioneers will be. To some surprise, it wasn't Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System, and Intermountain Healthcare, who were among the most likely candidates to join the ACO experiment. The leading health systems, along with others in the industry, complained the draft CMS rules were too burdensome and didn't offer enough incentive to join the Shared Savings or Pioneer program. …
Title: New Managed Care Research Has Been Reported by Scientists at American University Managed Care
Source: Managed Care Weekly Digest via News Edge
Date: 9/14/2011
Overview: The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act included a provision to promote the formation of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). These organizations will be eligible to share in the savings to Medicare if they are able to reduce costs and provide high-quality care," investigators in Washington, District of Columbia report …
Title: Industry Consortium to Cooperate on ACOs
Source: Health Data Management
Date: 9/15/2011
http://www.healthdatamanagement.com/news/accountable-care-revenue-cycle-hie-43186-1.html
Overview: Sixteen vendors, consultancies and advocacy organizations have formed the Accountable Care Community of Practice, a collaboration to help provider organizations developing or planning to develop accountable care organizations. …
Title: Co-Ops, ACOs In The News
Source: Kaiser Health News
Date: 9/12/2011
Overview: Meanwhile, a survey by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions finds that Americans still don't believe the health law is working and have questions about the federal government's priorities.
…
Title: Three Metro Detroit health systems apply for program to manage Medicare costs
Source: Detroit News.com
Date: 9/10/2011
http://detnews.com/article/20110910/LIFESTYLE03/109100324/1040/rss34
Overview:
At least three Metro Detroit health systems have applied to be among the first networks of hospitals and doctors nationwide to work to improve quality and lower costs for seniors receiving Medicare — and to share in the financial risk…
Title: Doctors Will Remain a Target Until They Wake Up
Source: Physicians News Digest (Online)
Date: 9/6/2011
http://www.physiciansnews.com/2011/09/06/doctors-will-remain-a-target-until-they-wake-up/
Overview: It never ceases to astonish me how ill informed my colleagues are about what is currently going on in healthcare. I recently sat in a board meeting of a physician- hospital orga