Why Do We need ACOs and Insurance Companies? Part II

By KIP SULLIVAN In my last post , I made fun of Ezekiel Emanuel and Joseph Liebman for predicting that ACOs would replace insurance companies by 2020. I noted that the 800 to 1,000 ACOs reportedly in existence today are nowhere near ready to accept full insurance risk because they have shown no ability to cut costs. [1] Although Emanuel and Liebman were foolish to predict most ACOs would quickly evolve into successful insurance companies, they shared with all other ACO advocates the understanding that that’s what ACOs are supposed to do – over time they’re supposed to bear more and more financial risk. It’s just never been clear how much financial risk ACOs were supposed to take on. The Affordable Care Act, for example, which authorized CMS to establish an ACO program within Medicare, did not address that question. A reasonable interpretation of statements and papers by ACO proponents is that they expected a substantial portion of ACOs to morph into insurance companies. According to an early paper  by several prominent ACO proponents, including Elliott Fisher, ACOs were expected to accept more risk in three stages: In stage 1 they would accept only upside risk (the opportunity to share in savings if they stayed under a target spending level); in stage 2 they would accept both up- and downside risk; and in stage 3 they would accept full insurance risk (they would no longer be paid fee-for-service, but would instead be paid “capitation” payments, aka premium paymen...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs