By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    physical health
    5 Ways Playing Games Can Improve Neural and Physical Health
    September 9, 2022
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    Reasons For Hair Loss and Its Treatment
    February 16, 2022
    healthcare organization
    5 Actionable Strategies For Healthcare Organizations
    August 15, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    email marketing in healthcare
    Harnessing the Power of Email Marketing in Healthcare
    October 26, 2023
    healthcare claims
    The Role of Communication in Resolving Complex Workers’ Compensation Claims in Healthcare Settings
    September 22, 2024
    Wounds and Wisdom: What Motorcycle Accidents Teach Us About Health and Healing
    Wounds and Wisdom: What Motorcycle Accidents Teach Us About Health and Healing
    February 12, 2025
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: How to Engage Physicians with the New ACO Benefits
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Business > Finance > How to Engage Physicians with the New ACO Benefits
BusinessFinanceHospital Administration

How to Engage Physicians with the New ACO Benefits

Abby Norman
Last updated: March 11, 2015 8:00 am
Abby Norman
Share
7 Min Read
SHARE

Doctors and ACO Benefits, “What’s in it for me?”

While the myriad ways in which ACOs benefit patients and healthcare organizations have been heavily touted over the last several years, many doctors find themselves asking “Yeah – well, what’s in it for me?”

Contents
Doctors and ACO Benefits, “What’s in it for me?”Doctors and ACO Benefits, “What’s in it for me?”Are ACOs More Work Than They’re Worth?Sharing RiskImproving Clinical WorkflowsGoodbye, Fee-For-ServiceSharing The WinsWill ACOs Work?

Doctors and ACO Benefits, “What’s in it for me?”

While the myriad ways in which ACOs benefit patients and healthcare organizations have been heavily touted over the last several years, many doctors find themselves asking “Yeah – well, what’s in it for me?”

doctors and ACOs

Are ACOs More Work Than They’re Worth?

For a lot of physicians, particularly those who have one foot in clinical and one in administrative, ACOs may seem like more work than they’re going to be worth. Since it’s still early yet to see how the ACO benefits will improve the country’s healthcare longitudinal, all we’ve got to go on are preliminary studies and anecdotes. Much of which may be encouraging on the patient front, but leaves a bit to be desired for medical staff.

More Read

healthcare costs highest in usa monopoly factor
Why US Healthcare Costs So Much More – it’s the Monopoly Factor
Adopting Technology in Healthcare for the Right Reasons
Tips in Making Flowcharts for Hospitals
To Increase Physician Productivity, Focus on Tools for Support Staff First
Difficult Patients and Unnecessary Catheters. Could They be Related?

Sharing Risk

For providers, it might seem like all an ACO is going to bring to their practice is financial risk; after all, it’s kind of the point of accountable care to make physicians more responsible than ever before. Understandably, many providers may be feeling hesitant to adopt a change to how they are practicing that involves their having to shoulder more financial risk. Particularly when you consider that many physicians who are treating complex patients may never be able to wriggle out from under the burden of frequent readmissions.

Quite simply, they may be feeling that they would be hard pressed to justify caring for such complex patients, knowing they have been tasked with providing high quality care for lower cost. The truth of the matter is, there are some patients who will always have to be the exception — and for some physicians, particularly specialists or rural hospitals — there may be a lot more exceptions to the rule than not, rendering the ACO benefits hazy at best.

Improving Clinical Workflows

One way that healthcare organizations can attempt to entice physicians to hop on the proverbial ACO bandwagon is to prove that ACOs have a positive impact on their clinical workflows. It’s no secret that physicians have been balking at the pressure to suss out patient’s payment abilities in the midst of treating them — and why shouldn’t they?

Nothing interrupts bedside manner by asking a patient, “So, how will you be paying for my services?” when they’re scared, in pain or gravely ill. While technology has aided in this process somewhat, the truth is that a patient’s financial information has become as much of a be it end all as their health information. In fact, it’s practically considered to be their health information. Questions about insurance carriers are asked in the same breath as where a patient hurts; and many of them might be apt to answer with, “my wallet.”

Doctors aren’t exactly thrilled to have to talk shop in this way with patients, and no doubt it detracts from their clinical tasks. Trying to determine the cause of a patient’s ills while simultaneously factoring in whether or not they can pay for this test or that procedure is not a favorite aspect of any physician workflow. But unfortunately, it’s become rather a necessary one.

Goodbye, Fee-For-Service

Enter the ACO. Since physicians working with ACOs aren’t based on the former fee-for-service style of payment, patients will be receiving care based not on their financial foothold, but their state of health. Further, when a physician in one clinical area establishes a workflow that works well, it is more than likely to benefit physicians across the board within a single healthcare system.

Sharing, rather than keeping the information hidden in silos, will allow the hospital to grow together, rather than having one area be extremely vulnerable while another is heavily lauded. By sharing best practices, the healthcare system’s growth will be symbiotic.

Sharing The Wins

With the sharing of great ideas and innovations comes as well a sense of shared risk, which is one of the biggest pulls for adopting ACOs. By spreading the risk across an entire system, rather than one practice shouldering it all, the losses will be smaller for individual providers. So too, when there are losses, whatever weakness in the system contributed to it will be common knowledge rather than hidden in the bowels of an office somewhere.

Not only will measures be reported within the hospital itself, but eventually this information will be released to patients as well. Of course, it’s worth remembering that the more honesty and transparency there is within a healthcare system, the more minds can be working on developing a solution to the problems at hand.

Will ACOs Work?

ACOs have been presented as the most sustainable model and in theory, that would seem to be the case. It will take many more years to gather enough empirical data to support the theory, but in the mean time, the short-term goals should be enticing not just to healthcare systems, but providers as well. The question is not “will ACOs work forever?” but rather, “will they work right now?”

And that’s a question that, for now at least, each healthcare system in the US will have to evaluate on its own. One thing is certain, though: something’s gotta give, because fee-for-service is completely unsustainable — and the healthcare system in the US can’t shoulder that burden much longer.

TAGGED:ACO
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share
By Abby Norman
My name is Abby Norman and I am a healthcare blogger. With over 10 years of experience in the medical field, I have developed a passion for helping others understand the complexities of healthcare.

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Health
May 15, 2025
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction heart treatment
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction
Cardiology
May 13, 2025

You Might also Like

Hospital Stays
BusinessHospital Administration

Avoid Hospital Stays by Taking Care of Yourself

August 23, 2021

Physician Capacity

February 6, 2014

Socialcam: Mobile Video Sharing Made Easy

July 7, 2014
Medical Device Marketing, Product Marketing, Online Marketing
BusinesseHealthFinanceMedical DevicesSocial MediaTechnology

What the Leader of the World’s Largest Medical Device Community Says About Marketing

April 14, 2014
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?