ACOs less likely to leave Medicare program after 3rd year

Accountable care organizations are less likely to leave the Medicare Shared Savings Program after their third year in the program, according to a new study published in the May issue of Health Affairs.
Some 30% of all MSSP ACOs exited within the first five years of the program, mostly midcontract, the study found. Of that, 4% exited in their first year, 9.5% in their second year, 20.7% in their third year, 10.6% in their fourth year and 11.2% in their fifth.
Factors contributing to longer ACO survival in MSSP included shared-savings bonus payment achievement, higher financial performance benchmarks, more care coordination, lower-risk patients and contracts with upside-only risk where the ACO’s don’t have financial skin in the game, in line with previous research finding the move to downside risk drives ACOs from the program. Quality measures did not correlate with ACO longevity.