AJMC in the Press, July 29, 2016

Several news organizations covered a paper that discusses the challenges for hospitals in accountable care organizations (ACOs) that also take part in Medicare’s Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program. Authors from Leavitt Partners, writing in the July issue of The American Journal of Managed Care, find that while ACOs and the Medicare VBP program both seek high quality and cost containment, the 2 programs have different objectives and hospital executives must “create strategies unique to each.” Fierce Healthcare’s Zack Budryk featured the study in his discussion of the exit of 3 participants in Medicare’s Next Generation ACO program, and Becker’s Hospital Review noted the finding that ACO hospitals don’t always perform better than non-ACO peers in Medicare VBP.

Jennifer Bresnick of Health IT Analytics wrote about a separate study in the July issue of The American Journal of Managed Care, in which Mayo Clinic researchers used predictive analytics to identify patients at high risk of ending up in the hospital, especially the emergency department. As Bresnick noted, the tool addresses a high priority for many hospitals and health systems—preventing unnecessary hospitalizations.