Accountable Care Organization, Healthcare Big Data, Healthcare Portal, and ACO Implementation Resources
FEATURED ARTICLES: ACO
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Partnership Brings Patient Education Across Entire Continuum Of Care
Banner Health aims to provide patient engagement and education throughout entire system with enterprise solution. By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer
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Providers Slow To Prepare For ICD-1012/19/2013
Providers, payers, and vendors are all lagging behind in preparing for ICD-10 with deadline only 10 months away By Katie Wike, contributing writer
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One Quarter Of Hospitals In EMR Standstill10/25/2013
Despite the constant buzz around electronic records and MU requirements, 25 percent of hospitals have made no EMR progress in half a decade By Katie Wike, contributing writer
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HIEs Provide More Complete Records Than Emergency Department9/4/2013
Patient information is more accurate using HIEs than emergency room documentation according to a recent study By Katie Wike, contributing writer
- The Future Of Healthcare Depends On Price Transparency
- Physician ICD-10 Readiness Less Than 10%
- E-prescribing Increases 800 Percent On One Network
- Interactive Patient Engagement Benefits Physicians And Patients
- HIE Platform Creates Population Management Ready Infrastructure
- Healthcare Uncertainty Reigns Supreme
CASE STUDIES & WHITE PAPERS
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An Israeli Model For Coordinated Care4/5/2012This white paper illustrates how Maccabi Healthcare Services, the second largest health maintenance organization in Israel, aligned the proper incentives, processes, and IT assets to deliver coordinated care to more than 1.9 million members.
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Accountable Care Trends, Strategies, And Best Practices11/30/2012
Movement within the nation’s healthcare system has been swift and broad-‐based since the October 2011 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Shared Savings Final Rule.
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Managing Healthcare Data Within The Ecosystem While Reducing IT Costs And Complexities6/27/2012
At the 2011 conference, EMC's team of healthcare solution specialists spoke with several vendors and conferees and asked one question: "What is the best way to reduce costs and complexity in a healthcare IT infrastructure?" The overwhelming answer was to enable a cloud environment for patient data and to find a solution for managing so-called "big data."
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How Is Clinical Decision Support Technology Driving Successful ACOs?12/8/2014
The movement to enhance and streamline healthcare through accountable care organizations (ACOs) is well underway in the wake of the issuance of final rules by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in October 2011. Designed as patient-centered initiatives that help doctors, hospitals and other healthcare organizations better coordinate patient care, ACOs are fundamentally structured to incentivize participating healthcare groups for achieving an aggressive set of cost and quality measures built upon improved communication, data sharing and decision making.
FROM THE EDITOR'S DESK
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The Problem With Consumerism In Healthcare
Many industry leaders championed a free market approach to healthcare during the 12th Annual World Health Care Congress last week. Here are a few key reasons why I don’t think this model is “the fix” our industry so desperately needs.
ABOUT ACCOUNTABLE CARE ORGANIZATIONS (ACO)
An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) utilizes a payment and care delivery system that bases payments to providers on quality metrics and seeks to reduce the total cost of care for a certain population of patients. ACOs use a range of payment models and consist of groups of coordinated healthcare providers that provide care to groups of patients. ACOs are accountable to a third-party payer and the group of patients for the appropriateness, quality, and efficiency of the health services they provide.
In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) set forth initial guidelines for ACOs to be created under the Medicare Shared Savings Program. These guidelines contained all necessary steps required for a physician, health care provider, or hospital to voluntarily participate in ACOs.
The quality measures used to evaluate an ACO's performance as defined by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) fall into five domains. These domains are patient/caregiver experience, care coordination, patient safety, preventative health, and at-risk population/frail elderly health.
The three stakeholders in an ACO are the providers, payers, and patients. Providers are a network of hospitals, physicians, and other healthcare professionals. The primary payer is the federal government, Medicare, but also includes other payers such as private insurances or employee-purchased insurance. The patient population of an ACO will primarily consist of Medicare beneficiaries, but in larger ACOs can also include those who are homeless and uninsured.
FEATURED NEWS
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ACOs Face Interoperability Barriers2/8/2016
According to a new report, a lack of out-of-network interoperability is the biggest obstacle facing ACOs today. By Katie Wike, contributing writer
ACO NEWS ARTICLES
- Upcoming Webinar: Data-Driven Care: The Key To Accountable Care Delivery From A Physician Group Perspective
- WEDI Releases Guide On HIPAA Transactions Requiring ICD-10 Codes
- Automated Quality Reporting Through EHRs Can Result In Significant Efficiencies And Care Improvements
- CMS Releases Updated Data On EHR Adoption
- West Florida ACO Chooses Sandlot Solutions As Partner In Patient Health Information Management