Despite the many uncertainties in the current health care delivery environment, payers and providers continue to demonstrate considerable interest in alternative payment models, including Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) accountable care organizations (ACOs). At the same time, concerns persist about the ability of the MSSP to provide a sustainable pathway toward transformation for health care providers and to generate savings to the Medicare program, a key outcome measure. In fact, an August 2018 Health Affairs blog post by Seema Verma, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), concludes that the net financial impact of the program is negative to taxpayers, and that hospital-based ACOs tend to be the drivers of this overall negative performance.
This analysis has influenced recent changes to the MSSP under the “Pathways to Success” rule, with major policy implications for participants and the program’s long-term sustainability. In particular, CMS’s analysis describes physician-led ACOS as low revenue and hospital-based ACOs as high revenue, concluding that the former had net savings of $0.182 billion, while the latter had net losses of $0.231 billion. Similarly, J. Michael McWilliams and colleagues conclude that physician-group ACOs had significantly larger savings than hospital-integrated ACOs.
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The last paragraph seems to contradict itself. Please clarify how “Similarly, J. Michael McWilliams and colleagues conclude that PHYSICIAN-GROUP ACOS HAD SIGNIFICANTLY LARGER SAVINGS than hospital-integrated ACOs.” when the prior sentence states …”describes PHYSICIAN-LED ACOS AS LOW REVENUE and hospital-based ACOs as high revenue,”. Thank you.
Thank you for commenting, Kristy. I think the confusion may stem from where the paragraph was cut off. If you follow the “Full Article” link, it will take you to the original Health Affairs article from which the direct quote was taken.