ACOs have little financial incentive to deliver preventive care that might decrease the chance that healthy patients are attributed to an ACO. OneCare Vermont is a provider-led Accountable Care Organization working to improve the health of Vermonters and lower health care costs. the ACO when an attributed beneficiary is admitted to an ED. ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers, who come together voluntarily to give coordinated high-quality care to their Medicare patients. What is an ACO? An estimated 13,300 Health Plan members will be newly attributed to the ACO model. ACOs are still on the line for the financial and clinical outcomes of attributed patients who seek care with non-affiliated providers. Are accountable care organization (ACO) leaders really ready to take on all the patients attributed to them—even the most challenging ones? Often overlooked in discussions on this topic: an accurately defined patient population is crucial to a successful ACO. Indeed, the further that patient care organization leaders push into risk-based contracting, the clearer certain challenges become. Since 2019, the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) has allowed accountable care organizations (ACOs) in the Basic or Enhanced tracks to choose either retrospectively or prospectively attributed ACO patient populations. An ACO’s ability to manage costs below their benchmark for attributed patients drives their likelihood of receiving incentive payments, and depending on the type of ACO, this might involve minimum savings or loss rates, upside risk, or downside risk in varying degrees. How to make an accountable care organization successful is a big topic in our industry today.The overwhelming nature of establishing and operating an ACO makes it easy to miss fundamental aspects. This brings us to the second feature—patients are attributed (ACA uses the term “assigned”) to an ACO based on their patterns of primary care use. OneCare partners with health insurance companies, hospitals, independent medical practices, and community collaborators to offer programs that pay for positive outcomes and health care activities. The next section will explore this in more detail. While speaking with ED staff, the ACO describes transitional care services that PCPs can provide to the patient, such as a follow-up telephone Therefore, developing a robust network will keep patients within the control of the ACO and increase the likelihood of coordinated, low-cost care delivery. The Administration thoroughly examined the ACO program offered by OneCare Vermont to ensure the attribution of members will not impact employee benefits, premiums, co-pays, or the financial health of the Plans. The question is far from abstract. 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