Medicare says there are now 154 ACOs serving 2.4 million members through its shared savings program. A list of 89 ACOs that most recently joined the program appears here. Notes CMS:
Studies have shown that better care often costs less, because coordinated care helps to ensure that the patient receives the right care at the right time, partly because patients avoid unnecessary duplication of services and dangerous medical errors.
Well, that’s the idea behind ACOs anyway, and if it works it will be a very big deal indeed. There are about 46 million Medicare members–indicating that the shared saving program is serving about 5% of total Medicare lives. In contrast, Medicare Advantage serves about 13 million members or 28% of total Medicare lives.
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ACOs are deceptively advertised as a solution to excessive and unnecessary health care services. They do not touch the real problem of massive transferred costs of care from those who don’t pay for their health care to those who do.
Doctors don’t order all those revenue-generating and rump-covering tests because they think it is good medicine. They are doing those reasonable things because they are forced to do so by the interference our government has inflicted on our health care system to give selected privileged voters a free ride. If our doctors do not do these things to game an unfairly and destructively distorted system, they cannot stay solvent after they donate unfunded but mandated care to those who demand it as a right.
Ignoring the fundamental problem of our health care system and papering it over with a useless, cosmetic approach that touts better medicine is a disservice and lie to we the people. ACOs are more fraudulent than anything the rest of us are doing to survive what our political elite have done to our health care industry.
ACOs do not deserve to exist Bring back the free market, restore everyone’s responsibility to pay for their own health care, and our doctors will go back to practicing the good, effective medicine that they don’t need an ACO to control.
I enjoy what you guys are up too. This kind of clever work and reporting!
Keep up the terrific works guys I’ve added you guys to my own blogroll.