Dive Brief:
- A JAMA study released this week examines the impact of the first year of the Medicare Pioneer ACO program on physicians' use of 31 services considered to have a minimal clinical benefit.
- The Harvard Medical School researchers conclude the Pioneer program, in which providers risk financial losses if they fail to reduce costs, was associated with "modest reductions in low-value services," with larger reductions among organizations providing more of the low-value care.
- The report follows CMS' recent data showing the ACO program cost Medicare money last year because there are still relatively few Medicare ACOs opting to take on financial risk.
Dive Insight:
The findings suggest ACOs facing the risk of financial losses for failure to reduce costs are responding as intended and altering their care to effect better value.
“Although adjusting practice to lower costs is a stretch from physicians' traditional role, the well-being of their patients and their communities now depend on it,” Dr. Arnold Milstein, director of Stanford University's Clinical Excellence Research Center, wrote in a related JAMA editorial.
Compared to their behavior before the program, Pioneer ACOs were found to have performed 1.9% fewer low-value services and to have lowered their spending on those services by 4.5%.