Physician practice participation in accountable care organizations: the emergence of the unicorn. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • OBJECTIVE: To provide the first nationally based information on physician practice involvement in ACOs. DATA SOURCES/STUDY SETTING: Primary data from the third National Survey of Physician Organizations (January 2012-May 2013). STUDY DESIGN: We conducted a 40-minute phone survey in a sample of physician practices. A nationally representative sample of practices was surveyed in order to provide estimates of organizational characteristics, care management processes, ACO participation, and related variables for four major chronic illnesses. DATA COLLECTION/EXTRACTION METHODS: We evaluated the associations between ACO participation, organizational characteristics, and a 25-point index of patient-centered medical home processes. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We found that 23.7 percent of physician practices (n = 280) reported joining an ACO; 15.7 percent (n = 186) were planning to become involved within the next 12 months and 60.6 percent (n = 717) reported no involvement and no plans to become involved. Larger practices, those receiving patients from an IPA and/or PHO, those that were physician-owned versus hospital/health system-owned, those located in New England, and those with greater patient-centered medical home (PCMH) care management processes were more likely to have joined an ACO. CONCLUSIONS: Physician practices that are currently participating in ACOs appear to be relatively large, or to be members of an IPA or PHO, are less likely to be hospital-owned and are more likely to use more care management processes than nonparticipating practices.

publication date

  • March 15, 2014

Research

keywords

  • Accountable Care Organizations
  • Delivery of Health Care
  • Patient-Centered Care
  • Physician's Role
  • Practice Patterns, Physicians'

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC4213047

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 84908222958

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1111/475-6773.12102

PubMed ID

  • 24628449

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 49

issue

  • 5