Accountable care organizations (ACOs): How these healthcare partnerships intend to benefit the community

A provision of the hotly debated Affordable Care Act (a.k.a Obamacare) - the accountable care organizations (ACOs) model encourages doctors and hospitals to partner up and provide care to their patients through a healthcare network. In this partnership, all parties are responsible for making sure that patients in their network receive quality care and keep costs down. Physicians and hospitals that accomplish those two goals, receive financial incentives. One key consideration for an ACO is that for at least three years they manage all of the health care needs of a minimum of 5,000 Medicare beneficiaries.

So how does this partnership benefit everyday people? The hope is that through this partnership, medicare spending would be reduced. How? Well currently it is believed that one of the ways medicare funds are wasted is by providing patients with unnecessary tests and procedures. This unnecessary testing is one of the things this provision hopes to reduce. It is also the hope that these ACOs focus on prevention. By carefully and effectively managing patients, especially those with chronic diseases, these networks hope to keep their patients healthy and out of the hospital, further keeping costs down.

Will it really benefit us? Well, the government begins receiving applications for this program January 2012. After that, I assume these networks will need time to test out the program and make adjustments. Realistically, it could be many years before we know the true effect of the ACOs.

You can read more on this topic from Kaiser Health News. Click here to see the full story.