An Oliver Wyman analysis says that even as many providers drop out of Medicare’s Pioneer Accountable Care Organization, the  total number of ACO’s continued to rise last year, albeit at a slower pace than in 2013.

Perhaps most significant is that nearly 70 percent of Americans now live in an area served by an ACO, up about 3 percentage points from the year before.

There were 426 Medicare ACO’s as of January 2015, up 58 from a year earlier. In the  previous year,  ACO’s increased by  a roaring 234. FierceHealthcare said that besides the Medicare ACOs, the report identified 159 others, to  come to a 585 total, up 12 percent  from 2014.

But there’s a long way to go. As Modern Healthcare reported:

“About 5.6 million Medicare patients, or 11 percent, will receive their healthcare from an ACO, but while ACO’s increased by about 16 percent, the number of patients receiving care from them only increased 6 percent, which the report attributes to smaller ACO’s joining the Medicare program.”