Accountable Care Transformation

The Duke-Margolis Institute for Health Policy, funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, is investigating how accountable care approaches can improve care for people with serious illness, which is a next step in the Center’s work on accountable care. In partnership with Leavitt Partners, the project identifies promising practices and practical operational guidance that organizations could implement. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) offer an important strategy for improving care for serious illness populations. ACOs are by far the largest alternative payment model sponsored by Medicare, and the number of commercial ACO contracts is growing rapidly. ACOs are powerful vehicles for improving serious illness care given the incentives ACOs have to deliver effective, efficient, and coordinated care that improves outcomes and quality of life without increasing costs. Further, the ACO model offers numerous improvements in serious illness care over traditional fee-for-service reimbursement. Notably, for example, fee-for-service does not reimburse for key infrastructure and services, such as 24/7 access outside of emergency departments, patient and caregiver education, care coordination, and shared decision making, whereas the ACO model provides financial flexibility to invest in these areas and provide crucial services, and typically brings new data on patients’ healthcare use across the spectrum. While ACOs have great potential in improving serious illness care, there remains substantial opportunities for improvement due to a lack of evidence on what works, a need for practical guidance, and challenges in implementing new initiatives.