Medicare accountable care organizations (ACO) under the federal Shared Savings Program yielded little to no effect on cost savings, despite improving diabetes outcomes by as much as 10 percent, according to a new study published in the journal Health Affairs. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services projected that the ACOs would save an average of $800 million total for all participating organizations and about $2.5 million per organization. But to achieve those savings, the study concluded that other quality improvement activities would be required, FierceHealthcare reported.
Although the study results could be particularly worrisome for many ACO participants, the results shouldn't be extrapolated to other conditions, according to David Eddy, founder and chief medical officer emeritus at the health-modeling company Archimedes. "Each condition has to be analyzed on its own," he said. --Read the full article at FierceHealthcare