Mark Lutes, a Member of the Firm in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Washington, DC, office, wrote an article titled "Examining the ACO NPRM: Moving Toward the Tipping Point?" in Accountable Care News.
Following is an excerpt:
In examining the new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) with respect to Medicare's "shared savings" program, we should avoid a myopic focus on the details of the NPRM's description of the attributes of an accountable care organization (ACO) applicant. Instead, we should be asking ourselves how much the shared savings program will contribute toward overcoming fee-for-service incentives that currently favor volume over quality and efficiency.
Looking beyond the NPRM to the overall goals of "generic" accountable care, we should concentrate less on the intricacies of the shared savings program's attribution methodology, notices to patients, and other such details. It is preferable to assess whether it is structured to attract a large number of providers into the program and whether the incentive plan — its "juice" — is strong enough to contribute materially to shifting provider focus away from volume to population health management and coordinated care.
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