Dive Brief:
- CMS has made $114 million available to help ACOs in rural and underserved areas take on more financial risk. The agency expects to recoup the investment by offsetting the ACO's earned shared savings.
- According to CMS, the 75 ACOs participating in this phase of the Medicare Shared Savings Program will be awarded a portion of the money as an upfront investment through the ACO Investment Model.
- The agency's investment is designed to offer help not only with infrastructure but also redesigned care processes which will improve care coordination and increase the number of beneficiaries that benefit from Medicare ACOs.
Dive Insight:
There's a few reasons to hope that this program will be successful. One is that the Medicare Shared Savings Program has been relatively successful for ACOs, with the agency adding 340 entities to this version of their ACO program. Another is that this approach, which takes into account that starting an ACO can be expensive, increases the chances of participants being successful.
Perhaps CMS' Pioneer ACO program, which has been losing participants rapidly, could benefit from this more collaborative financial approach. Startup costs for a risk-bearing entity can be intimidating even for large, well situated ACOs, and staying in black can be quite difficult. If this rural program works, at least, it will audit for a model of success which should carry over to its other ACO efforts.