It’s value-based, data-driven, patient-centered care that rewards quality over quantity
Accountable care is a concept for organizing and delivering health care that strives for:
- Better care and outcomes
- Access to the right care and a better patient experience
- Lower cost
Accountable care is value-based care. Traditionally, providers have been paid based on volume of services. But accountable care ties provider payment to the outcomes of care. Accountable care business models align payment with improved efficiency and effectiveness in managing the care of a defined group of patients. This encourages providers, payers and patients to work together for proactive, preventive health care.
In accountable care, collaboration is key:
- Clinicians share information across the continuum to coordinate care, apply evidence-based medicine and manage patient populations.
- Providers and payers collaborate to align incentives with mutual goals and — depending on the provider organization’s desired business model — establish gain-sharing and risk-sharing agreements.
- Patients take a more active role collaborating with their care team.
How does accountable care differ from managed care?
Why should accountable care models succeed in transforming health care where managed care models did not? A few key characteristics of accountable care — and the current health care environment — make all the difference.
Get started on the path to accountable care
If you’re a provider considering implementing an ACO or simply want to introduce aspects of accountable care into your business model, we can help. Combine our tools and resources with your clinical expertise and reputation. Let’s set a course for accountable care success — and help build better, more affordable health care for today and future generations. Contact us to get started.
