1.  Affordable Care Act to improve quality of care for people with Medicare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released proposed new rules to help doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers better coordinate care for Medicare patients through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today released proposed new rules to help doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers better coordinate care for Medicare patients through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).  ACOs create incentives for health care providers to work together to treat an individual patient across care settings – including doctor’s offices, hospitals, and long-term care facilities. The Medicare Shared Savings Program will reward ACOs that lower health care costs while meeting performance standards on quality of care and putting patients first.  Patient and provider participation in an ACO is purely voluntary.

The proposed new rules will help doctors, hospitals, and other providers form ACOs and are now available for public comment.  HHS also announced it will hold a series of open-door forums and listening sessions during the comment period to help the public understand what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency administering the ACO program, is proposing to do and to ensure that the public understands how to participate in the formal comment process.

“The Affordable Care Act is putting patients and their doctors in control of their health care,” said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.  “For too long, it has been too difficult for health care providers to work together to coordinate and improve the care their patients receive. That has real consequences: patients have gaps in their care, receive duplicative care, or are at increased risk of suffering from medical mistakes.  Accountable Care Organizations will improve coordination and communication among doctors and hospitals, improve the quality of the care their patients receive, and help lower costs.”

By focusing on the needs of patients and linking payment rewards to outcomes, this delivery system reform, as part of the Affordable Care Act, will help improve the health of individuals and communities while saving as much as $960 million over three years for the Medicare program. 

Under the proposal, ACOs – teams of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers and suppliers working together – would coordinate and improve care for patients with Original Medicare (that is, who are not in Medicare Advantage private health plans). To share in savings, ACOs would meet quality standards in five key areas:

·                                             Patient/caregiver care experiences

·                                             Care coordination

·                                             Patient safety

·                                             Preventive health

·                                             At-risk population/frail elderly health.