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In 2011, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released new rules under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aimed at helping doctors, hospitals and other providers better coordinate care by way of accountable care organizations, or ACOs.
ACOs provide a framework for rewarding providers financially — in both the public and private sectors — for ensuring that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors.
Since then, the number of ACOs has grown dramatically.