Portland, Ore., with Mt. Hood in the distance.
This Health Affairs blog entry reviews Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations, asking if CCOs can be a way to transform the delivery system, to eliminate disparities, and improve the overall health of the Medicaid population — or if they are in practice simply a cost-containment strategy for business as usual?
The authors offer three takeaways:
“First, when it comes to accountable care, legislative and market forces are still the most powerful drivers of collaboration among traditional competitors. Second, tensions between those traditional adversaries can be smoothed out over time if all partners, including the state, are invested in the success of the model. And third, the shift from extrinsic (they’re requiring us to do it) to intrinsic (we believe we should do it) motivation is facilitated by an organization’s ability to maintain good financial health.”
