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someone previously posted about how great the ACOs would be. Quite a few are dropping out and the results have been modest, at best.
Health-law model drops out of Obamacare program | The Seattle Times
Health-law model drops out of Obamacare program | The Seattle Times
Dartmouth faced mounting financial losses in a federal program that is in the vanguard of efforts to move Medicare away from a fee-for-service system.
In addition, he said, “There is little reason to think that ACOs will bend the cost curve in a meaningful way” unless they bear more financial risk, sharing losses as well as savings with the government.
“We were cutting costs and saving money and then paying a penalty on top of that,” said Dr. Robert Greene, an executive vice president of the Dartmouth-Hitchcock health system. “We would have loved to stay in the federal program, but it was just not sustainable.”
Since accountable-care organizations began operation in 2012, a number of them like Dartmouth have dropped out of the program, citing financial uncertainties and unrealistic benchmarks for spending.
Fisher said he was cautiously optimistic about the future of accountable-care organizations. “Evidence on spending suggests modest savings overall,” he said, though he acknowledged that in Medicare “the model has yet to achieve the benefits many advocates hoped for.”