Novel ACO Model Pairs Community Health Centers With Local Academic Medical Centers

Tags: ACO | Medicare | readmissions | teaching health centers

Two physicians have proposed a novel care delivery model, called Community Health Center and Academic Medical Partnerships, to sustain community health centers and preserve access for Medicaid beneficiaries and other low-income patients, according to a New England Journal of Medicine report.

CHAMPs would combine subspecialist expertise, medical technology and the inpatient care of local academic medical centers with the primary care expertise of community health centers. These combinations would create a subgroup of CHCs known as teaching health centers, a distinctive form of accountable care organizations, according to authors Richard E. Rieselbach, MD, and Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH.

The CHAMP ACO model has several advantages over fee-for-service Medicaid or managed care, according to the report. The following five advantages are mentioned in the report.

• Teaching health centers would adopt a more robust approach to primary care than found in academic medical centers, and Medicaid patients would probably prefer an ACO that offered primary care closer to their homes.
• Teaching health centers may prove to be more philosophically attuned to practice integration and team care. This orientation that should facilitate transitions in care and, in turn, reduce preventable hospitalizations and readmissions.
• CHC governance models reserve a majority of board slots for consumers, giving community members a voice in their care.
• All the care of a CHAMP's enrollees would be attributable to that organization, permitting more effective care coordination and greater cost savings.
• CHAMP ACOs would pursue a more collaborative approach to cost containment and would not pit providers against payors.

Read the NEJM report on Community Health Center and Academic Medical Partnerships ACOs.

Related Articles on ACOs:
5 Thoughts on ACOs from Healthcare Leaders
ACOs Inspire Doubts, Criticisms of "HMO Redux"
ACOs: Spend Now to Save Later?

© Copyright ASC COMMUNICATIONS 2012. Interested in LINKING to or REPRINTING this content? View our policies by clicking here.