Citation
Lewis, Valerie A.; Fisher, Elliott S.; & Colla, Carrie H. (2017). Explaining Sluggish Savings under Accountable Care. New England Journal of Medicine, 377(19), 1809-1811. PMCID: PMC5759329Abstract
Despite aggressive targets set by Medicare for the spread of value-based payment arrangements and widespread agreement on the importance of delivery-system reform, progress toward lower spending growth and a transformed delivery system has been slow. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) are a prime example: nearly 1000 organizations operate as ACOs, but they have generated limited savings. Even in the third year of Medicare ACO contracts, fewer than half of ACOs received a bonus for reducing spending. To guide policy and help providers succeed, it would be useful to understand why so few ACOs are achieving savings. Data-driven empirical work on ACO performance has yielded few insights into the specific characteristics of ACOs that lead to success. We believe it would be helpful to consider how economic and organizational theories might explain early results from the ACO experiment.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp1709197Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2017Journal Title
New England Journal of MedicineAuthor(s)
Lewis, Valerie A.Fisher, Elliott S.
Colla, Carrie H.
Article Type
PerspectivePMCID
PMC5759329Data Set/Study
Centers for Medicare and Medicaid ServicesNational Survey of ACOs