Attrition has been high in Medicare’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization program, as only 19 of the 32 original participants remained after two years. For those that stuck it out, results have been mixed.
In March, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services introduced the Next Generation ACO model, said to build on the experience of the Pioneer ACOs and the Medicare Shared Savings Program, both of which are elements of the Affordable Care Act.
Matthew Hayward, a senior research analyst in healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Sachin Jain, CMO of Anthem subsidiary CareMore Health System (as well as a former Merck executive and senior advisor to then-CMS Administrator Dr. Donald Berwick), came up with this cartoon to illustrate the struggle of shifting to accountable care.
““With the Next Generation ACO program, CMS is pushing the envelope on improving care efficiency through innovative payment designs. We’re excited by the announcement and have high hopes for what CMS is trying to accomplish, but also acknowledge that some of the organizations that dropped out of the Pioneer program (either because they weren’t ready, or because of flaws in the program’s design, or both) would probably advise other organizations to carefully self-evaluate before joining the program,” Hayward explained in an e-mail to MedCity News.
