Dive Brief:
- Doctors and hospitals are rapidly forming Accountable Care Organizations, which under the Affordable Care Act allow them to share in the savings they achieve for the Medicare Program.
- Community health groups that specialize in fitness and nutrition say they are being left out of physician-dominated ACO boards and are fighting for public funding.
- Annual ACA funding for prevention and public health was initially supposed to hit $2 billion this year, but is now not expected to reach that level until at least 2022.
Dive Insight:
It is well documented that good nutrition and fitness can prevent chronic illnesses and decrease medical costs; therefore, community health groups might make good partners for ACOs. "Compared to even the best medical therapy, we can decrease heart attacks, strokes and deaths by between 35% and 45% by changing lifestyle," Paul Rogers, a Louisville, KY, cardiologist at one of the KentuckyOne Health System's three healthy lifestyle centers told USA Today. The centers provide medically-supervised exercise, nutrition counseling, stress management and fitness classes.