Among the current remedies for U.S. health care are Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) — networks of doctors, hospitals and usually payers banded together to rein in costs by providing higher quality, better coordinated care, with primary care doctors central to the process. Whether ACOs are going to cure our ailing health care system is an open question. If they are going to help at all, they will require resuscitation themselves. What ACOs need are specialists to bring them back to life. And just as primary care doctors are being held increasingly accountable for the quality and cost of care they provide, bringing specialists into ACOs means that they also will be accountable.
A Role for Specialists in Resuscitating Accountable Care Organizations
Managing the cost risks cannot be delegated to primary care providers alone.
November 05, 2013