Sam Sobul, MPA

Engaging specialty physicians is an emerging area of focus for Medicare accountable care organizations. Enhanced data on specialist costs and outcomes are essential to addressing alignment challenges.

Allowing nurse practitioners to serve as attribution-eligible providers for Medicare Shared Savings Program accountable care organizations leads to no change in hierarchical condition category risk scores and modest growth in attributed beneficiaries.

A recent survey found that more than 90% of accountable care organizations (ACOs) have multiple EHRs. This could present issues as ACOs adopt electronic quality measures.