4th National ACO Summit: Some Contextual Reflection

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH When ‘Acting Administrator’ of CMS Don Berwick gleefully announced the final rule guiding the development and Federal certification of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) on October 20th, 2011, he thereby officially unleashed the power of the largest single payer for healthcare services in the United States to simultaneously govern while informing …

Leavitt Partners Report: ACOs, Their Growth and Dispersion

On the Wednesday, November 30th, 2011 broadcast at 11AM PT / 2PM ET my special guests include two principal co-authors of the recently released Leavitt Partners study titled: Growth and Dispersion of Accountable Care Organizations‘. For an extract and link to download the full report, click here. More about the guests: Andrew Croshaw is Managing …

Berwick v. Hatch, Enzi & the Gang of 42. Lunatics 1, America 0

Reprinted in portion below: Berwick’s resignation a signal of a faulty political system via Healthcare Finance News by Stephanie Bouchard WASHINGTON – It came as a surprise to no one that Donald Berwick, MD, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, would not be carrying on in the position once his term ended on …

Dr. Don Berwick on ACO’s: From Volume to Value

By Donald Berwick, MD Editors Note: Thanks to a tweet today via @AxSys_Health CMS Administrator Don Berwick, M.D., explains ACO’s in plain language. Hi, I’m Don Berwick, CMS administrator. Today’s a kind of red letter day, October 20th 2011. That’s the day in which we launch the Accountable Care Organization final rule and I just …

Proposed v. Final ACO Rule

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Deep in the 690+ pages of the document filed with the OFR, is a nifty little matrix that compares key provisions of the ‘notice of proposed rule making’ to the final rule which theoretically incorporated the best and brightest suggestions pro-offered in 1,300+ comments supplied to CMS. That pre/post matrix …

ACOs: It’s Not Just About Medicare [shared savings]

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH A recent report attached to a Tweet posted by Brian Ahier caught my attention in the blitzkreig of ACOs postings this past week.  @ahier Building #ACO‘s & OUtcome Based Contracting in the Commercial Market The complete title of the attached report is ‘Building ACOs and Outcome Based Contracting in the Commercial Market: …

ACO Final Rule: A Round Up of Early Opinion and ‘Go To’ Resources

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Like some of you, I woke up the morning of Friday, October 21st, 2011 to a literal ‘blitzkrieg’ of tweets flooding two TweetDeck columns tagged ‘ACOchat’ and ‘ACO’. Everyone it seems has a dog in the hunt to make known their standing or interest in Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), the …

HHS/CMS ‘Fact Sheets’ Per PR Issued Today on HealthCare.gov

EDITOR’S NOTE! Re: The press release ‘fact sheet’ for the ACO and Medicare Shared Savings Programs provisions as codified in today’s FINAL RULE, is published in it’s entirety below: People with Medicare will be able to benefit from a new program designed to encourage primary care doctors, specialists, hospitals, and other care providers to coordinate …

They’re Here!!

CMS releases final rule today on ACO and Medicare Shared Services Program! For complete text of final rule submitted to the Office of the Feferal Registrer today, click here. More details to follow including a TweetChat via hashtag #ACOchat. There will be a conference call and Press conference today with Dr. Don Berwick et al …

ACO reimbursement, bundled payments, clinical quality measures and public profiles will be based on ICD-10 data

By Lynne Thomas Gordon Healthcare leaders are juggling multiple pressures, including the consistent delivery of high-quality patient care, evaluation and development of accountable care organizations, the careful management of sensitive patient data, achieving meaningful-use criteria, making the most efficient use of the newest technology and stretching revenue to maintain end-to-end coverage of their bottom lines. …