When the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have announced the 2020 results for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) in early September, Intermountain Healthcare’s Castell Accountable Care organization was revealed to have received a quality score of 97.03 percent and to have generated $11.5 million in savings for Medicare. The…
In August, Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure and other leaders from CMS shared their priorities for the next 10 years. In particular, they called out the importance of reducing inequities in health care, striving to get all Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries in accountable care relationships, and designing financial incentives that will encourage participation in new payment and…
As we reported in a news article on Sept. 30, “A dispute has arisen over controversial statements made by two prominent healthcare policy leaders around the Medicare Advantage program. On Sept. 30, Donald Berwick, M.D., and Richard Gilfillan, M.D., published an article in the Health Affairs Blog entitled “Medicare Advantage, Direct Contracting, And The Medicare ‘Money Machine,’ Part 2:…
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program had a record performance year in 2020. The ACOs saved Medicare $4.1 billion while achieving an average quality score of 97.8 percent. One of the health systems participating in the program—Advocate Aurora Health—led the nation in savings and quality. Advocate Aurora’s affiliated ACOs generated $110 million in…
The Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) is the largest value-based care program from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to date. As of 2020, there were 513 ACOs participating in the program, with a total shared savings of $2.28 billion.8 This program seeks to accomplish the following: Promote accountability among healthcare institutions for the…
CMS is looking to modernize the ACO reporting process by mandating the use of electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs). However, accountable care organizations (ACOs) are concerned that the lack of healthcare interoperability will make electronic ACO reporting near impossible. “CMS must avoid making eCQMs mandatory until standard data fields exist across EHRs, and true interoperability…
On August 26, leaders at the Downers Grove, Illinois- and Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based Advocate Aurora Health posted a press release to the organization’s website announcing breakthrough results on the part of the integrated health system’s three federal accountable care organizations (ACOs.) As the press release stated, “Data released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) show…
On August 25, 2021, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the 2020 performance results for accountable care organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) – the agency’s cornerstone accountable care initiative. ACOs and value-based care advocates have been anxiously awaiting this latest MSSP data, given the significance of performance…
Accountable care organizations saved Medicare $4.1 billion in 2020 and nearly $2 billion after taking out shared savings, according to new federal data. The data, announced Wednesday by the National Association for Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS), are an improvement over the $2.6 billion in shared savings they generated in 2019 and $1.9 billion after taking…
The Medicare Shared Savings Program collectively saved Medicare $4.1 billion last year and $1.9 billion after accounting for shared savings payments. It is the highest annual savings to date for the accountable care organization model that served 10.6 million seniors in 2020. The accountable care organizations had an average quality score of 97.8% and 60…