Cleveland Clinic CEO Recommends Changes to Current ACO Rules

In addition to the Cleveland Clinic, several other hospitals and chains have sent their concerns and suggestion to CMS. The Cleveland Clinic specifically saw conflicts that would ultimately put barriers in the way of success. As I wrote before the cost of an ACO is not done without the proper and effective Health IT management tools in order to contain and evaluate all areas that need to come into play.

Will Healthcare ACO Incentives Be Consumed by Software and Vendor Expenses When It’s All Said and Done?

429 pages is a lot of rules and information to consume and analyze for implementation to meet all provisions. CMS is still taking comments on the proposed new rules. To qualify a minimum of 5,000 of Medicare patients needs to be managed over 3 years. There is certainly room to save in all areas of healthcare but will rules improve the quality of care, this is the question the Clinic was questioning as some of the provisions do nothing to improve outcome. BD

Proposed federal rules for accountable care organizations create significant barriers that would discourage hospitals from adopting the new model of care, according to Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove.
Cosgrove made the comments in an eight-page letter addressed to Donald Berwick, top administrator for the the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), though Cosgrove stressed that the Clinic supports the concept of accountable care organizations (ACOs).
Cosgrove said the Clinic was “generally disappointed” with the details of the 429-page proposed regulations that describe how ACOs would be set up and run. The letter was posted by Modern Healthcare.

Proposed Medicare ACO rules create ‘significant barriers’ says Cleveland Clinic CEO | MassDevice – Blog entry