ACO Program Rejected by Model Health Plans
During the health care debate, the Mayo Clinic, the Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Health System and Intermountain Healthcare were repeatedly touted as models for a new health care delivery system.
Now, they have something else in common: All four have declined to apply for the “Pioneer” program tailor-made by the Obama administration to reward such organizations.
The four health systems are considered the most promising models for “accountable care organizations,” a new approach to delivering health care services that rewards doctors and hospitals for providing high-quality care to Medicare beneficiaries while keeping costs down….
[But] the American Medical Group Association, which represents nearly 400 large provider organizations, responded with a letter to CMS warning that more than 90 percent of its members would not participate because of the reporting requirements and financial disincentives.
The hospital executives I’ve spoken to worry about the cumbersome reporting requirements of ACOs and the inflexibility that inhibits adjusting the system when tweaks are needed. Economist Tim Harford has a book about failure. His assessment is that success is born of failure when you continually tweak your operations to improve them. The ACO regulations do not allow for a feedback loop to learn from mistakes and adjust your actions.
No surprise here.
Good for them.
The risks are too large. They’re happy doing what they’re doing, and they don’t want anybody to force them to do otherwise.