An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) is a group of doctors, hospitals, and health care providers working together with Medicare to give you high quality, more coordinated service and care. By helping your doctors and primary care providers to communicate more closely with your other health care providers, ACOs can deliver high-quality, more coordinated care that meets your individual needs and preferences. ACOs may share in the savings it achieves for the Medicare program when it succeeds in delivering high-quality care and spending health care dollars more wisely. An ACO isn’t the same as a Medicare Advantage Plan or Health Maintenance Organization (HMO). You’re still in Original Medicare, and your Medicare benefits, services, rights and protections won’t change. And you still have the right to use any doctor or hospital that accepts Medicare at any time, the same way you do now.
Having all medical care completed within an ACO provides the following benefits:
- Open communication between physicians from different specialties within the same ACO to determine solutions
- Fewer medical tests because doctors and hospitals will send records if previously done
- Reduced medical history paperwork because the information may be stored in the practice’s electronic health record (EHR or EMR)
- Established single point of contact for all questions concerning care
- Centralized network of physicians for the patient, creating a team cooperating to deliver comprehensive care
Please note that, unlike HMOs, managed care, or some insurance plans, an ACO cannot tell you which health care provider(s) to see and cannot change your Medicare benefits.
