While the feds were developing regulations for Medicare ACOs, both the feds and the American Hospital Association were developing cost numbers for ACO start-ups.
Today the AHA published its preliminary numbers, listing 23 major competencies to form and operate a hospital-based ACO (the AHA has been generally supportive of reform efforts, seeing a grim future).
The AHA costs estimates ranged from 600% and 1400% higher than the DHHS-CMS estimates. Both estimates are preliminary, but that is a huge difference. In my opinion (without deep analysis) the federal estimates have the substance of cotton candy.
On the list of 23 competencies, some were for formation only but most for formation and operations (my own list was 13 major competencies for on-going operations). The ACO is a very complex business model.
If ACOs do not fly, the major objectives of PPACA (Obamacare) will be difficult if not impossible to achieve.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment