by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Regulatory Bumbling The people who daily manage health care services (and their advisers) have been shocked at the inability of the Obama administration to manage the administrative regs roll out process. The 2009 stimulus act contained multi-year funding for adopting electronic medical records (EMR/EHR) systems. The funding […]

by Tom aka Rusty Rustbelt Health Care Thoughts: Accountable Care “Smackdown” The American Medical Group Association represents about 400 very large and sophisticated multi-specialty physicians groups, such as the Cleveland Clinic group and Intermountain (Utah) group. The Obama administration had counted on these groups to be the first to create Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), starting […]

Health Care Thoughts: ACO Draft Regulations On March 31st the Obama administration issued the draft regulations for Medicare Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). ACOs are to eventually be the centerpiece of cost savings for the entire US health care system. This is the first peak at how the ACOs might be defined. In the “they never […]

Health Care: Defining an ACO Having recently plowed through about hundreds of pages on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and Integrated Delivery Systems (IDSs), I should know how to define an ACO. But I don’t know, not exactly. Using an old Supreme Court standard, I know one when I see it, I think, because of certain […]

There was a question on what ACO meant for health care practices and as part of reform of current practices. Rusty sends two links he thinks might help: A guide to Accountable Care Organizations… from Health Reform Watch offers a glimpse: Specifically, their findings illustrate that there exists wide variations in the cost of care […]