By Melanie Evans | December 2, 2014
Medicare‘s accountable care contracts have proliferated fast and the program is poised to expand again. But federal officials acknowledged that it may be difficult to maintain that momentum without easing the financial risk of participating.The officials responsible for the initiative, created by the 2010 healthcare reform law, say it’s worth tweaking the structure to keep healthcare providers committed to the cause.
The CMS and the hospitals and doctors that formed roughly 330 accountable care organizations in the program have wrangled since before its 2012 launch over the right balance of bonuses and penalties employed to improve quality and reduce the cost of healthcare.
Nearly all of the participants so far have chosen a track that allows them to earn bonuses if they meet cost and quality targets, with no risk of paying Medicare back if they allow costs to rise beyond benchmarks. Now the CMS will allow them to keep operating that way for another three years before wading into the riskier end of the ACO model.
“We’re big believers in this program,” said Sean Cavanaugh, director of the CMS Center for Medicare.
