Accountable care and integration: a challenge for credentialing and risk management

Healthcare reform efforts have resulted in expanded creation of integrated organizations such as accountable care organizations. These ACOs, however, create additional risk management issues for organizations in terms of antitrust compliance, fraud and abuse, and medical liability issues. While much has been written on the formation of such organizations, the postformation risks have not been explored adequately. This article summarizes some of the risk-management challenges that ACOs and other integrated organizations may face.