The Wave of the Future? ACOs?

Having recently plowed through about hundreds of pages on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and Integrated Delivery Systems (IDSs), we should know how to define an ACO.

But not exactly.

This is critical because the Obama administration expects to garner huge savings from providers working through ACOs, beginning for Medicare in 2012 (building such systems in less than 9 months is going to be a Herculean task)..

The best formal definition we have seen to date, and it is very general, is the CMS definition for Medicare ACOs, and I quote:

Q: What is an "accountable care organization."

A: An Accountable Care Organization, also called an "ACO" for short, is an organization of health care providers that agrees to be accountable for the quality, cost and overall care of [Medicare] beneficiaries who are enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program who are assigned to it (ACO).

It is a start, barely. The ACOs are supposed to be in place 1/1/2012. Administrative regulations were issued in November 2010 and the public comment period ended recently.

In a recent speech DHHS Sec. Berwick offered these "flag and apple pie" characteristics, still very general:

• the patient and family will be at the center;
• teamwork will now become “paramount;”
• respect resources and reduce waste;
• reinvest where investment counts;
• measure and manage outcomes partially through electronic health records; and
• establish a solid health care workforce foundation

If ACOs are to dominate the health care arena, we should probably know how to define an ACO.