The Ingredients of Success in a Medicare Accountable Care Organization

While ACOs have rapidly become one of the preferred approaches to providing more efficient health care, the ingredients of a successful program have not been well described in the literature. In this report, from The American Journal of Managed Care, the Hackensack Alliance ACO in Hackensack, New Jersey presents the elements that have been critical to their program’s success. They describe how they gained cost savings and share the quality measures that were monitored. One reason their program succeeded in producing savings is the requirement that physician practices be certified as patient-centered medical homes by NCQA. Also critical, was instituting nurse care coordination of high-risk patients from the beginning of the ACO contract.

ACO News is a feature of the Medicaid Accountable Care Organization Resource Center, an online collection of tools designed to help Medicaid agencies develop and launch accountable care organizations.