Friday, September 17, 2010

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs): A Good Primer

ACOs are seen by many as being the answer to controlling health care costs and improving the quality of delivery. But what are ACOs and how do they differ from HMOs? Here is a post that provides good background on the concept (http://blog.healthintegrated.com/index.php/2010/09/16/the-aco-how-big-a-role-will-it-play/#more-691).

Two comments I have to make about the post. While the author notes that providers not only are responsible for care but also the risk for it, he does not note the difficulty in coming up with a payment structure acceptable to these providers. He also talks about how Kaiser has this concept in hand. However when I worked at Kaiser there was no proof (much to the chagrin of the sales force) that the ACO model provided better care at lower cost.

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