Category Archives: Accountable Care Organizations

Who Bears the Cost of the Uninsured? Nonprofit Hospitals.

But in new research the authors find that when the population of uninsured Americans increases, hospitals end up bearing the cost by providing uncompensated care. In fact, their results suggest that each additional uninsured person costs local hospitals $900 per year.

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Top Challenges to Analytics in Healthcare? Not Technology!

A variety of challenges stand in the way of successfully implementing analytics in healthcare organizations. Not surprisingly, the top issues don’t always involve technology.

This finding became clear in a study conducted by the Healthcare Center of Excellence this summer, which sought to determine what are perceived to be the top challenges facing analytics.

The study reveals the importance of executive leadership skills in bringing about support of analytics and the extent to which findings from analytic efforts are incorporated into how organizations change and adapt. This aspect of leadership, while learnable, needs to happen quickly if organizations want to achieve the desired incomes from their forays into analytics.

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Using data to move toward transparency: Six things health care providers can do

With high-deductible health plans increasing in popularity, cost and accountability for outcomes will become more important to consumers seeking medical providers. Additionally, provider organizations managing risk-based contracts will have additional motive to increase transparency to earn trust and instill loyalty with patients.

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Do patients held for observation skew performance on quality measures?

Do patients held for observation skew performance on quality measures?

Just how much success have hospitals had in their efforts to prevent patients from returning soon after leaving? Perhaps not as much as reported, two physicians argue at the blog for health policy journal Health Affairs.

Why? Because Medicare patients who end up in hospital beds for observation technically do not count as repeat visitors.


Pioneer ACO Program Saves $384 Million, OK’d for Expansion

Medicare’s accountable care organization model has notched sufficient savings to meet the agency’s criteria for expansion to a larger population of beneficiaries.

The Pioneer ACO model, a controversial Medicare program geared to incent doctors and hospitals to improve quality and reduce costs and redundant care, in two years saved more than $300 per year for each of the 600,000 beneficiaries enrolled and is ready to be scaled up, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials said Monday.

Pioneer ACO Program Saves $384 Million, OK’d for Expansion