We are working on finalizing a physician owned and run ACO which will include physicians from all states, regions, and specialties. If you are interested in joining us or need more info, please email us at info@acoguide.org

This is a low risk model for physicians as 

Medicare will subsidize the infrastructure costs for small, physician-led ACOs

Physicians can leave the ACO, if they decide, it is not working for them 

There is no financial risk, if costs are not reduced. 


ACOs Are Bursting Out All Over
By Jenny Gold

Accountable Care Organizations are the hot new health care trend, and there’s a new study out by Leavitt Partners trying to quantify just how hot they really are.

ACOs, as defined in the 2010 health law, are a delivery model that offers doctors and hospitals financial incentives to provide good quality care to Medicare beneficiaries while keeping costs down.

But that program hasn’t even launched yet, and already there are 164 “ACO entities” in the country, according to the Leavitt report. Leavitt Partners is a consultancy started by Michael Leavitt, a former governor of Utah and secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush.

To get their count of ACOs, Leavitt Partners examined news releases, media reports, trade groups and conducted interviews and considered a health system to be an ACO if it either self-identified as one or was “adopting the tenets of accountable care.”  The report included systems working with private payers rather than Medicare.


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Top 4 ACO Considerations for Physicians
By Aubrey Westgate

Confused about how 'accountable care' will affect your practice? We're here to help.

Internist Carlos Hernandez is very familiar with accountable care organizations (ACO). In fact, he says he's been part of one since before the term ACO was "even a buzzword."
Hernandez, president of WellMed Medical Group in San Antonio, leads about 400 employed and contracted physicians in a "full-risk" Medicare reimbursement model. If WellMed physicians don't reach quality and cost metrics for their 80,000 Medicare patients, they lose out financially.
When Hernandez first heard about the group's switch to full-risk reimbursement 20 years ago, he says he wondered, "What took it so long?" He says participating in the model has been a win-win for WellMed, which operates 22 primary-care clinics in the San Antonio area and about 13 clinics in other parts of Texas and Florida. In addition to improving patient care, he says, "it lets us start seeing [fewer] patients for either the same or more income than we would have gotten in the traditional fee-for-service."

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