Accountable Care Organization, Case Study Example

As head of the department, I fully support the hospital system converting to an Accountable Care Organization. Indeed, there are foreseeable challenges yet to face the shift, but the merits associated with the change outweigh the adverse effects. The hospital will experience lower costs of carrying out business than in previous years upon making the change. Patient satisfaction is vital to a hospital, and the change will ensure that the clientele are contented with improved services. Once the hospital embraces the change, the physicians and the hospital are accountable for the quality of the services they deliver to their patients (Pearl and York, 2013).

Hospitals and the Medicare patients will benefit more when they collaborate with the insurance than forming an Accountable Care Organization on their own. More benefits follow this approach than the hospital and patients forming an ACO void of partners. In this case, the medical group will work alongside the hospital and the insurance company. As such, all the involved parties will share the performance risk obtained at work. Moreover, forming a partnership model will aid all entities involved in forming common goals that are easily achieved when all parties work in unison. Formulating an alignment of the goals forms a way through which commitment and high performance can be achieved (Capretta, 2013).

As much as this partnership model has several benefits, there are cases of adverse effects. Managing performance risk is a setback often witnessed once the hospital joins an AOC in partnership with an insurance company. The players in the operating module are many, and this makes it difficult to keep track of the responsible party when underperformance occurs. However, the community benefits by attaining affordable and high quality services. One of the things I would expect to occur in my community is attaining quality medical attention. Thus, it is my expectation that the AOC initiative will focus more on the quality of medical services provided rather than the price tag attached to the services.

References

Capretta, C. J. (2013). Reforming Medicare integrated care: An alternative to the Obama administration’s accountable care organizations. American Enterprise Institute. Retrieved on 8 Nov. 2013 from http://www.aei.org/outlook/health/healthcare-reform/ppaca/reforming-medicare-integrated-care-an-alternative-to-the-obama-administrations-accountable-care-organizations/

Pearl, M. R. and York, K. G. (2013). Make physicians full partners in accountable care organizations. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved on 8 Nov. 2013 from http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/11/make-physicians-full-partners-in-accountable-care-organizations/