Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
After $3 Million Loss, Dartmouth-Hitchcock To Leave Pioneer ACO Program
Healthcare Finance: Dartmouth-Hitchcock To Exit Pioneer ACO Program Over Losses, Calls Model 'Unsustainable'
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center will abandon the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization program, the system confirmed Tuesday, after losing more than $3 million over the past two years in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid model. Instead, the ACO hopes to join CMS's Next Generation ACO model in 2016. (Morse, 10/20)
Kaiser Health News: Are Medicare ACOs Working? Experts Disagree
In August, Medicare officials released 2014 financial details showing that the so far the ACOs have not saved the government money. The 20 ACOs in the Pioneer program and the 333 in the shared savings program reported total savings of $411 million. But after paying bonuses, the ACOs recorded a net loss of $2.6 million to the Medicare trust fund, a fraction of the half a trillion dollars Medicare spends on the elderly and disabled each year. To help put this development in perspective, Kaiser Health News posed this question to several ACO experts: Three years in, the ACO program has many success stories, but it’s not yet saving Medicare money. Is it working? (10/21)
