Major Trends in Healthcare: What are Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) and Medical Homes:
The ‘Accountable Care Organization’ and ‘Medical Home’ are terms frequently used in the current medical literature to highlight the trends in the new medical marketplace. 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. Medical Homes are an extension of this concept in which the patient’s care is fully coordinated by a single physician or medical clinic. (Formerly called the gatekeeper model). This integration and coordination of medical services is designed to improve quality while eliminating duplication and waste.
Historically in 1993, this model of integrated healthcare delivery was essentially a part of the Jackson Hole Model of ‘managed competition’ that was championed by Hillary Clinton. It is now one of the centerpieces of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare. In 1993, the U.S. citizenry was not ready for a major overhaul of the Healthcare System, but today, because of unbridled costs and the burden of the uninsured, it is ready. Indeed, most of my medical colleagues find much more good than bad in the ACA. For more information about the phase in of the ACA go to http://reform.healthfoundation.org