What Is an Accountable Care Organization? Summary of the Proposed CMS ACO Regulations

Published May 2011

A key part of the recently passed Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) is Section 3022, which, effective January 2012, creates the Medicare Shared Savings Program. The Program’s purpose is to promote accountability for a patient population through the creation of accountable care organizations (ACO) that will lead to higher quality of care at a lower cost by redesigning how care is designed and provided to patients. The federal government released the proposed rules for ACOs March 31, 2011, which will enable physicians, physician practices, hospitals, and other healthcare organizations to decide whether they wish to create an ACO with a minimum three-year commitment.

Authored by Jon Burroughs, MD, MBA, FACPE, CMSL, Senior Consultant with The Greeley Company, this white paper explains the ACO requirements and offers insight to those seeking to better understand this new model and the Shared Savings Program.

*MAGNET™, MAGNET RECOGNITION PROGRAM®, and ANCC MAGNET RECOGNITION® are trademarks of the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). The products and services of HCPro, Inc. and The Greeley Company are neither sponsored nor endorsed by the ANCC

HCPro, Inc. and The Greeley Company are not affiliated in any way with The Joint Commission, which owns the JCAHO and Joint Commission trademarks, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which owns the ACGME trademark, or the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care (AAAHC).