ACOs have been mentioned recently, so it is important to understand just exactly what ACOs are...and CMS lays it out for us.
ACO stands for Accountable Care Organization. According to the CMS website, here is the definition of ACOs: Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers, who come together voluntarily to give coordinated high quality care to their Medicare patients.
Coordinated care is meant to make sure that patients, particularly the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding duplication of services and preventing medical errors.
When an ACO both delivers high-quality care and spends health care dollars more efficiently, it will share in the savings it achieves for the Medicare program.