Definitive Healthcare May 15, 2018
An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) is a voluntary coalition of healthcare providers characterized by a care delivery and reimbursement model tying provider payments to quality metrics and patient care outcomes. The goal of the ACO model is to reduce total care costs for a specific patient population. Each ACO has a defined patient population for which it is held accountable in terms of care cost and quality. Patient populations are primarily comprised of Medicare beneficiaries.
All but one of the top 10 ACOs with the largest patient populations are commercial ACOs–the exception is one Medicare Next Generation ACO. Commercial ACOs are reimbursed by commercial payers or self-insured employers and do not have public reporting requirements, unlike those associated with the...