New White Paper Summarizes Proposed ACO Rules

Building a Post-Acute Network: Care Management and ACOs

Download the White Paper

In March, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) released proposed rules for accountable care organization (ACO) provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (ACA). A new white paper issued by Health Dimensions Group serves as a high-level summary of the rules for ACOs and the shared savings program most relevant to post-acute providers.

It provides examples of how three leading post-acute provider organizations are preparing to be part of a new health care delivery and payment model. Authors included:

• Kathleen M. Griffin, PhD, Health Dimensions Group
• Peter Longo, Cantex Post-Acute Networks
• Connie Bessler, Greystone Healthcare Management
• Rosemarie Rae, Volunteers of America
• Guy Masters, The Camden Group

According to CMS, ACOs create incentives for health care providers to treat an individual patient across care settings: physician offices, hospitals, post-acute, and long-term and outpatient settings. Incentives will be a shared savings program, which rewards ACOs for lower growth in health care costs while meeting performance standards for quality care and putting patients first. By law, ACOs will be operational on January 1, 2012.