Sampling of ACO-Ness For Y'All

In late May, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) introduced a new program intended to enhance provider interest in developing accountable care organizations (ACOs) under healthcare reform. The pioneer ACOs program would provide an accelerated pathway to forming an ACO for providers that already have the infrastructure and care coordination models in place to move forward quickly. Such providers could move rapidly from shared savings to a population-based payment model, and could begin officially participating in the program earlier than in the regular program.

Nonetheless, many healthcare provider leaders remain wary of the ACO program as outlined in CMS’s proposed rule, released March 31 of this year. Among the numerous issues that continue to cloud potential participation on the part of patient care organizations include downside risk assumption; patient opt-in/opt-out for release of personal health information to ACO participant organizations; and the requirement that 50 percent of physicians participating in any ACO be “meaningful users” according to the provisions of the HITECH (Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health) Act.
Manuel Lowenhaupt, M.D., a Boston-based senior executive in the Accenture Health division of the global consulting firm Accenture, spoke recently with HCI Editor-in-Chief Mark Hagland regarding his perspectives on the proposed rule for ACO development, and on how providers have been reacting to its release. Below are excerpts from that interview.

What were your own reactions to the proposed rule?

I’m down on the ground, working with three large clients, all of them integrated health systems wanting to develop ACOs. And they were certainly concerned with elements of the ‘regular’ ACO rule—there is the ‘pioneer ACO’ development, which is separate, of course. The folks I enjoy working with are doing this for the right reasons—improving care, improving efficiencies, and wanting to collaborate. And then they came out with these ‘regular’ ACO regulations, and that set folks back a bit. They said, we don’t think we’re going to qualify without a lot of work; the number of measures was frustrating to them; the upfront costs and the application process were frustrating to them.

So in all three cases, they basically said, the regular ACO was not a good fit. And we’ve been working with them around a variety of issues. In one case, we actually helped them go through a formal clinical integration process, and they were very focused on this concept; and they’re three very integrated health systems, ones people might point to as already being ACOs in the general sense, but they are looking at this right now and saying there isn’t a fit.
They all want to develop strong contracts with physicians, as well as become more dominant in their markets. The frustration—and I was sitting down just recently with the president of one of these organizations—and he said he was frustrated with the requirements around the regular ACOs; but he was saying he thought the ‘pioneer’ model might be more appealing. They feel as though they have 90 percent of what’s being asked for in the pioneer program, already in place. His concerns around the regular ACO certification revolve around things like expectations around metrics, and just the documentation and compliance requirements seemed a little bit frustrating.

Do you believe that CMS will show some flexibility and make some modifications for providers in the ACO program?

I think they’re going to try; but my insight is limited. I think there is definitely a school of thought that says, yup, we’ll make this something that will happen. And I think there’s been very thoughtful feedback from folks at organizations like AMGA and MGMA [the American Medical Group Association and the Medical Group Management Association], [with the leaders of those organizations] just being realistic about what it will take. But just because something makes sense isn’t the only reason things will happen around there at CMS. And I consider Don Berwick [CMS administrator Donald Berwick, M.D.] a huge hero in medicine. But it’s unclear to me how all this will play out in the long term. So I have very little insight as to whether they will make significant changes. But some of the organized medical groups have made some very thoughtful comments. And I’m not convinced that the pioneer program has answered all the questions. For example, I’m working with one large hospital system that has been very skeptical of ACOs from the beginning; their CMO has referred to the ACO program as a unicorn.