Assignment 1: Accountable Care Organizations Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) play a key role in coordinating health care services for Medicare beneficiaries. These organizations have largely

Assignment 1: Accountable Care Organizations    

Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) play a key role in coordinating health care services for Medicare beneficiaries. These organizations have largely become consumer driven, making marketing and health care consumerism central to their success. By offering and marketing evidence-based, patient-centered services and initiatives, ACOs can better connect with consumers. For this Assignment, you examine the services and initiatives for an ACO in your state.

To prepare:

• Select an ACO from the website ACOs in Your State in this week’s Learning Resources.
• Identify evidence-based services/initiatives that the ACO is using.

  Note: To determine if services/initiatives are evidence-based, go to http://innovation.cms.gov/

• Consider the following:
  • Is the ACO using services/initiatives that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recognize and for which they offer reimbursements?
  • How does the ACO market these services/initiatives to increase health care consumerism?

The Assignment

In a matrix, analyze evidence-based services/initiatives that the ACO you selected is using for each of the following:

• Quality of care
• IT
• Marketing
• Financial outcomes
• Population health programs
• Vertical versus horizontal integration
• Operational excellence

Include whether the ACO is using approaches that CMS recognizes for reimbursements and how these initiatives/services increase health care consumerism.

Synthesize the information you have gathered from your analysis so that each bullet point clearly represents the most significant considerations within each category. While this is a 1-page document that might appear to be simple, each point must be the result of deep and critical thinking.