The Cost Factors of 'Accountable Care Organizations'



The Cost Factors of 'Accountable Care Organizations'

ACO supports as provider collaboration, the integration of hospitals, physician groups and various other providers in many ways. ACO does this for achieving extra payments through targets that are quality patient focused. ACO model is very flexible as it can be organized in various ways from networked models to integrated delivery systems. Thus it creates a room of comfort for the physicians to work in an efficient manner for improving quality, reduce costs and coordinate care properly. Further, ACO can feature various incentives for payments, such as a single sided shared savings in an environment which is free for service, (Fisher, 2010).

Basically ACO are groups of physicians, doctors, hospitals and health care providers who work together for a high quality care for their patients. The goal is to provide the patients with the right quality of care at the right time. After being successful in delivering a health care of high quality, the savings it saves will be shared for the medical care programs. This ACO is organized as an integrated delivery system involving a common hospitals and physician's ownership. This system provides electronic health records, financial incentives and various other resources for cost effective patient care.

In our discussion we will be talking about an ACO in the New York state of the USA. We will be talking about how it is organized, how the payers go about paying for it, how the payments are distributed among the providers and the quality measures used for evaluating the performance of this ACO

How is this ACO organized?

According to the rule ACO is a legal entity. It is recognized as such by the law of the state, constituting the providers, who are physicians and doctors or the participants, known ...