Accountable Care Organizations Still Play a Vital Role in Value-Based Care
Moving away from accountable care organizations (ACOs) will not lead to value-based care, according to Luke Hansen, M.D., M.H.S., and chief medical officer of Arcadia, a healthcare data analytics company.
Accountable care organizations (ACOs) still play an important role in value-based care, and shifting away from them at this time would be a mistake, according to Luke Hansen, M.D., M.H.S. In a video interview with Managed Healthcare Executive, Hansen explained why ACOs are still important.
Luke Hansen, M.D., M.H.S.
“Bundled programs are a necessary piece,” Hansen said. “The ACO structure can transfer accountability for cost to PCPs [primary care physicians], but at the end of the day, if you play that out and you really start to tighten the screws, I worry we end up back where we were with managed care 1.0, where the PCPs become gatekeepers.”
Hansen went on to explain that thoughtfully transferring risk to organizations is the key to success.
“If we were to just transfer risk, in a thoughtful way, to an organization to get them to think more about a population attribution than clinic visit volume—that's the key component of the program that's needed,” Hansen continued. “Right now, there are still the engines, the machines, of the provider industry attuned to visits, which are inherently reactive. If we could figure out a way to give accountability for populations to these organizations, they could reverse engineer how to get to those people and bring them in appropriately.”
Conversations With Perry and Friends
April 14th 2025Perry Cohen, Pharm.D., a longtime member of the Managed Healthcare Executive editorial advisory board, is host of the Conversations with Perry and Friends podcast. His guest this episode is John Baackes, the former CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan.
Listen
Why Better Data and Awareness Matters for Medicaid Work Requirements
April 17th 2025With policymakers considering work requirements for Medicaid eligibility, Jennifer Haley, principal research associate in the Health Policy Division at the Urban Institute, said it’s more important than ever to understand how those changes could unintentionally cause harm, particularly when data systems fall short and public awareness is limited.
Read More
Breaking Down Health Plans, HSAs, AI With Paul Fronstin of EBRI
November 19th 2024Featured in this latest episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite podcast is Paul Fronstin, director of health benefits research at EBRI, who shed light on the evolving landscape of health benefits with editors of Managed Healthcare Executive.
Listen
Medicaid Expansion Linked To Timelier Lung Cancer Surgery and Access to High-Volume Hospitals
April 17th 2025New research shows that Medicaid expansion was linked to a 2.1% increase in timely lung cancer surgeries and a 2.8% rise in procedures at high-volume hospitals, highlighting how policy changes can impact cancer care access.
Read More
