The state of New York is committing more than $1 billion per year for five years to an experiment that aims to restructure care for Medicaid patients through networks that are similar to accountable care organizations, according to The New York Times.
Under the experiment, physicians in New York's economically depressed neighborhoods will still be paid based on the quantity of care they provide but will be eligible for bonuses if their teams improve the health of the patients assigned to them, according to the report.
Going forward, if the experiment works, providers may be paid solely based on the quality of care they provide rather than the quantity, with better-performing groups earning more than those whose patients are not as well off, the report reads.
One of the alliances consists of more than 1,000 primarily Hispanic physicians serving Upper Manhattan and the South Bronx, according to the report. The network also includes Asian physicians working in the Chinatowns of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, a 19-hosptial system based in Manhasset, N.Y. The nonprofit venture they formed, called Advocate Community Providers, counts more than 770,000 patients, the most out of the 25 alliances participating in the program, according to the report.
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