ACO Timeline: Key Dates and Application Process

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as of July 1, 2012 89 new Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) began serving 1.2 million Medicare beneficiaries in 40 States and Washington, D.C. These 89 new ACOs have entered into agreements with CMS, taking responsibility for the quality of care …

Standing Up the ACO: A View from Ground Zero

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH The clock has been officially ticking for the more mature ACO Pioneer class and recently anointed, perhaps less sophisticated pool of market entrants, in the Advanced Payment Model or standard Medicare Shared Savings Program. Clearly, top of mind strategic questions du’ jour in many board rooms and standing committee conversations …

The Advanced ACO Payment Model: An Unlikely Source of Innovation?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Recognizing that all healthcare is local and typically imprinted with variable leadership DNA, risk maturity levels, provider concentration or segmentation, competitive dynamics, urban v. suburban and rural market considerations, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) including the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) refined and offered several …

ACOs, Accountable Care and the Digital Health ‘App Market’

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH So much of the innovation metabolism witnessed today via social media and seeping into mainstream consideration, seems to be sucked up in the many, perhaps oversupplied and under utilized consumer facing ‘digital health apps’ market. We have yet to see these app driven forces of nature materially unleashed in the healthcare …

The 5 Myths of the Republican Health Reform Solution

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Let’s start here, the healthcare industry is a $2.5 trillion behemoth unlike any other in the US economy. At roughly 20% of GDP, 1 out of every 5 dollars spent in the US works it’s way into a complex, silo-ed, discontinuous, often schizophrenic and certainly misaligned series of volume vs. …

The ACO is a Child of the ACA

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Only another battle has been won, (tho’ an effing big one at that), yet the war to re-engineer America’s healthcare borg remains intact and the Act is at risk to the outcome of November’s elections. In a perfect world 100% of our resources are committed to implementation of the vision, yet in …

The Affordable Care Act: What’s Changed Post SCOTUS Ruling?

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Found over at the Healthcare Blog, a post SCOTUS Affordable Care Act conversation hosted by Eliza Corp and led by noted healthcare futurist and consultant Jeff Goldsmith. This is well worth a view and even note taking. Among Goldsmith’s many insights is the following: A stunning lack of understanding of …

ACOs: The 2012 Line-Up

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH A Profile of ACO’s Selected for July 1, 2012 Start Date Per CMS Annoucement: On July 9, 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the selection of 89 additional Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to participate in the Medicare Shared Saving Program.  The selected organizations will take responsibility …

On the ‘Epidemiology of Unicorns’ aka ACOs

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH We all love infographics, right? Well, courtesy of the good folks at The Advisory Board, aka @TheAdvisoryBd check out the updated map and associated legend to track with the incidence of certain ACO model types as they inevitably pepper the US landscape. For complete blog post, click here.

An ACO Progress Report c/o CMS

By Gregg A. Masters, MPH Can you feel it? Amidst the continued uncertainty spawned by the very principals who most directly hope to benefit from the continued diversion if not outright ‘anti ACA’ (i.e., Affordable Care Act) propaganda are data suggesting a possible shift in not only attitude but commitment to ‘accountable care’ and the …