Toward Accountable Care: Eight Models of Risk-Sharing in Health Care Delivery
<p>The new Medicare Shared Savings Program is designed to accelerate the creation of accountable care organizations, payer–provider alliances for delivering high-quality health care at lower cost through new payment models that reward efficiency. A new <a href="/publications/fund-reports/2011/jul/promising-payment-reform-risk-sharing-accountable-care">Commonwealth Fund study</a> prepared by Catalyst for Payment Reform, in partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton, reports on the implementation of eight private accountable care organizations that use, or are planning to deploy, a shared payer–provider risk payment model. Still in an early developmental phase, these payment models vary not only in their design but in how they define shared risk.</p>
<p>The authors find that very few health care providers and private-sector payers have experience with shared-risk payment arrangements. It will be critical, they say, for private-sector purchasers and payers to continue to experiment with both shared-savings and shared-risk arrangements in the search for successful ways to align incentives for high-value care.</p>
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<a href="/publications/fund-reports/2011/jul/promising-payment-reform-risk-sharing-accountable-care">Read more</a> to learn about what it will take for accountable care organizations to succeed, and what the most effective payment models to support them are. <br /></p>