The association, which represents medical groups that employ or contract with nearly 60,000 California doctors for care, said ACOs should be fully adopted rather than used in a pilot project, as some in Congress have proposed.
The association says ACOs would control costs by “transcending” fee-for-service reimbursements and emphasizing outcome-based medicine and adoption of health information technology.
ACOs are said to be akin to the “patient-centered medical home,” in which a primary care physician acts as a kind of “gatekeeper” for patients, deciding whether they need diagnostic tests and specialists’ services.
Read the California Association of Physician Groups’ release on accountable care organizations.
