CMS Call: Tips on Submitting Application for Medicare MSSP ACO

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH There are those trying to figure out how to best ‘build out’ if not perfect (as in the Pioneer class) an ACO, while an even larger pool ‘leaning’ in the direction of playing, are focused on the mechanics of the application process. As with the ‘interface model’ that’s kept the …

First Round of ACO Results Due Soon

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Most of us watching and trying to interpret the ACO tea leaves are both challenged yet determined to assimilate a coherent picture of what’s happening at the ‘industry zeitgeist’ level. As noted previously, once you’ve seen one ACO, you seen one ACO. Since there is ample confusion from the differences …

Meet the Florida Association of ACOs (FLAACOS)

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH I just finished chatting with the instigator of the Florida Association of ACOs (FLAACOS). Nicole Bradberry, CEO. Nicole’s story in part tracks back to the first meeting of the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS), where she got the idea to build a state level resource for identify and share best practices, drive …

Time for a New ‘IPA’? The Independent Patient Association

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH For some ‘IPA‘ is about conversation and spirit enabled conviviality often in micro-breweries scanning the daily options for consumption. While for others IPA conjures up images and memories of labored if not painful efforts to steward the phased transformation of the American healthcare [non]system from a production oriented fee-for-services silo …

So What’s with the [ACO] Bundled Payment Thing?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH It’s interesting to note the more ‘things change’, the more they ‘[seem] to stay the same?’ Let me explain…. In a recent observation by Rob Lazerow featured in the post ‘How Are ACOs Doing‘ the Advisory Board Senior Consultant dubs 2013 as the ‘year of accountable care’. He then goes …

Some Context and Perspective on Standing Up the ACO

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH I am passionate and write a fair amount about health reform, innovation in business models and the pursuit of a ‘sustainable healthcare ecosystem’ as I’ve been intimately involved in serial efforts to restrain the appetite of a change resistant industry that Shannon Brownlee aptly frames in Escape Fire the hard …

Are Institutionally Led ACOs ‘DOA’? I Say Heck Yah!

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH At the end of the [business model and strategic positioning] day, it’s all about the intangible but mission critical ‘C’ word, i.e., culture, and whether two traditionally oppositional styles (physician v. hospital) can mash-up and ‘meaningfully integrate’ (clinically, legally & workflow wise) where previous attempts during the 80s and 90s …

HiMSS 2013 Accountable Care Organization RoundUp: Monday March 3rd

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We’re only 8 days out from the HiMSS bash in the ‘big easy’ aka ‘NOLA’. We’ve been so engaged in planning the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium aka @HIBCtv coverage it’s been a challenge to stay on top and share the more worthwhile developments in the ACO space. So lets detail some …

The National Association of ACOs Emerges

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We’re only 8 days out from the HiMSS bash in the ‘big easy’ aka ‘NOLA’. We’ve been so engaged in planning the Health Innovation Broadcast Consortium aka @HIBCtv it’s been a challenge to stay on top and share the more worthwhile developments in the ACO space. Perhaps of most immediate interest …

Signal to Noise Challenges in ACO Actuarial Data: Who’s ‘At Greater Risk?’

This post originally appeared at HealthHombre. The national health expenditure data released last week showed relatively modest 2011 growth, which promptly provoked a back-and-forth about what the figures truly say and what they portend for holding spending in check going forward.  Amid considerable mental gear gnashing, the data have been assessed in light of such potential cost influencers as lingering recessionary effects, clinical v. administrative drivers, and imminent arrival of the full-bore ACA.  Occupying several nodes along the public-opinion continuum, headlines ranged from “Spending …