A new report from Aledade, a company that helps physicians form and run Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), says its ACOs have increased primary-care use (which should help boost prevention and reduce the need for expensive specialty care) and revenue, cut lab and imaging costs, and reduced emergency department and hospital use and readmissions in Medicare’s Shared Savings Program (MSSP) for ACOs.

Importantly, the CMS and Aledade both emphasized that more time in the program tends to result in more savings – e.g., CMS noted that 42 percent of ACOs that entered the program in 2012 generated savings above their minimum savings rate, compared to just 21 percent of those who entered in 2015.

The company cited problems involving benchmarking, hospital coding, risk adjustment and information flows/information blocking from EHR vendors and hospitals. Aledade also noted the importance of importance of scale, and said that that MSSP policies can be improved to shorten ACOs’ timeline to financial success.

To read the Aledade report, please hit this link.