Dive Brief:
- The first class of 137 ACOs saved $380 million in the first year, but in many cases those savings are not going to hospitals.
- Physician practices lead more than half of the nation's 367 healthcare provider ACOs, a much different results than pundits had anticipated.
- Doctor-led ACOs seem to keep costs down because they encourage patients to use lower-cost primary-care channels, retail clinics or even home visits for non-urgent care. These healthier patients visit the hospital less often, which means less money coming into those facilities, experts note.
Dive Insight:
For hospitals, this is the nasty backside -- financially at least -- to participating in an ACO. If the ACO achieves its purpose, and keeps patients out of the hospital, it leads to losses for hospitals, or if nothing else, doesn't pump up the volume of admissions. Someone's going to have to look at the ACO model closely and admit that hospitals and doctors have different financial incentives.