CMS has pushed back the application cycle by a year for a new rural-focused accountable care organization (ACO) model. In an email sent yesterday, CMS said it has delayed the request for applications release date from spring 2021 to spring 2022 for the ACO Transformation Track of the upcoming Community Health Access and Rural Transformation…
In a letter to HHS, the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS) recommended that the agency promote significant ACO growth after several years of policies have hampered healthcare’s move toward value-based care. The letter, written by President and CEO of NAACOS, Clif Gaus, ScD, outlined the cost-saving impact ACOs have had on Medicare spending…
The National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS) sent a letter on Monday congratulating Xavier Becerra, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, on his recent confirmation. The letter also recommends a number of actions to help support accountable care organizations, as well as payment and delivery reform. To support the ACO movement and promote value-based care, NAACOS…
Newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra needs to reverse a slide in participation among accountable care organizations, the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) said. The advocacy group wrote in a letter to Becerra on Monday that HHS should also set a national goal to have the majority of Medicare beneficiaries within an ACO…
The federal accountable care organization (ACO) landscape continues to twist and turn, with one of the most recent developments being the drop of participants in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), down from a membership high of 561 in 2018 to 477 at the start of 2021. Leaders at the National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) assert that…
The Next Generation ACO program, was supposed to end in 2020, but it was granted a one-year reprieve because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The National Association of ACOs (NAACOS) wants that extension to become permanent and says the “Next Gen” ACOs save the Medicare program a lot of money. Former CMS Administrator Seema Verma begs…
Accountable care organization (ACO) participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program has hit a new low in 2021, according to new data from CMS. The data dropped by CMS this week showed that 477 ACOs are participating in Medicare’s flagship ACO program in 2021, down from 517 ACOs in 2020. The ACO participation number is…
On Jan. 21, the leaders of NAACOS, the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of ACOs, published a press release to the association’s website referencing newly published data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that shows a concerning drop in participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) over the past year. As the press release published Thursday…
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) taking on the greatest financial risk in Medicare through the Next Generation ACO Model saved the public payer over $558 million in 2019, according to partial data from CMS. CMS released the data yesterday on 37 of the 41 Next Generation ACOs participating in 2019. The data excluded savings and quality data from…
New data shows the majority of accountable care organizations that participate in the Next Generation ACO model achieved savings in 2019. The data, recently released by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, shows just two of the 37 ACOs failed to meet benchmarks and achieve savings in 2019. The Next Generation program actually involves…