Purchasers to Insurers: Standardize Your ACO Measures

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Policy
• Health Economics
• Quality Improvement

Background:

• Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are increasingly covering more lives.
• A need exists for standardized performance metrics in commercial ACOs.
• Previous efforts in California provide a foundation for broader standardization.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a standardized set of 50 performance measures for commercial Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).
• To facilitate consistent evaluation and comparison of ACO performance across the industry.
• To build upon existing initiatives for healthcare payment reform.

Main Methods:

• Development of a standardized set of 50 performance measures.
• Leveraging insights from prior standardization efforts.
• Analysis of current ACO market penetration and growth trends.

Main Results:

• A proposal for a standardized set of 50 ACO measures has been developed.
• Commercial ACOs covered an estimated 19.1 million lives in the first quarter of last year.
• This represents a significant increase from 17.2 million lives covered a year prior.

Conclusions:

• The proposed standardized measures aim to improve ACO accountability and performance.
• The rapid growth in ACO coverage underscores the timeliness and importance of this standardization effort.
• Standardized measures are crucial for the continued success and expansion of value-based care models.