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NY ACOs Launch

Crain’s Health Pulse�� April 11, 2012

HHS announced the first Accountable Care Organizations under the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

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The ACOs will get financial rewards for lowering the rate of growth in health care costs for Medicare beneficiaries while meeting specific quality measures.

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In ����������, the groups are (bullets by ����������): ��

• the Accountable Care Coalition of Mount Kisco (an ACO partnership between Mount Kisco Medical Group and Collaborative Health Systems);
• the Accountable Care Coalition of the North Country (an ACO of North Country Physicians Organization and CHS);
• the Chinese Community ACO (which will serve 12,000 Medicare beneficiaries in ���������� City’s Chinese community and will include hospitals, visiting nurse and home care agencies, churches, senior centers and senior social day care centers);
• CIPA Western New York IPA (doing business as Catholic Medical Partners, based in Buffalo); and
• Crystal Run Healthcare ACO.

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CMS picks 27 ACO participants for shared-savings program

By��Rich Daly ModernHealthcare.com���� April 10, 2012

The CMS designated����as the first Medicare Shared Savings Program accountable care organizations, which are one of the healthcare law’s most anticipated payment and delivery reforms.

The entities aim to create financial incentives for physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers

to better coordinate care and improve the health of Medicare beneficiaries while lowering their costs.

The first ACOs will include more than 10,000 physicians, 10 hospitals, and 13 smaller physician-led entities and serve an estimated 375,000 beneficiaries. The announcement follows the January����and six����organizations.

The mix of organization types-just over half are physician-led-was touted by CMS officials.

“There were some people who feared that the only entities that would participate would be hospital-dominated systems,” Jonathan Blum, director of the Center for Medicare at the CMS, said in a call with reporters. “That has not happened.”

Blum added that he expected the new ACOs to have more success controlling healthcare costs than similar payment and delivery reform pilot projects previously authorized within Medicare that were studied by the Congressional Budget Office. A����on 10 such major care coordination and disease management initiatives found insufficient savings to offset their cost.

Blum said the CMS “very carefully studied” the results of those initiatives and designed the new ACOs to perform better.

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