Student’s name
Background
Accountable care organization is composed of a group of care providers, hospitals, and doctors who join up collaboratively together to provide high-quality care to the patients. The goal of an Accountable Care Organization is to ensure that they provide coordinated care to the patients ensuring that the chronically ill especially will get the right care at the right time while avoiding unnecessary services duplication as well as preventing medical errors. The rate of healthcare spending is expected to rise by 6 percent every year by the end of 2020 in the United States (Devore & Champion, 2011). By the period, the health care spending is expected to account for about a fifth of the country economy and the federal government will be expected to pay a greater share in financing the health care cost ever than before. In the recent days, there have been reforms in the Medicare federal programs changing the way the healthcare is paid for and organized. Recent rules have stipulated a new path for hospitals, doctors and other healthcare providers to form teams referred to as “Accountable Care Organizations” that are essential in saving money through coordination of medical care services for the patients. Under the reforms, the teams are expected to provide health care at a lower cost treating the patients for lesser money. The government has committed to rewarding such organizations financially if they meet the expected quality measures (Lieberman & Bertko, 2011).
Development
An Accountable Care Organization is a form of managed care that differs from the health maintenance organizations. They are normally run by doctors, a group of health care practitioners or hospitals rather than by the health insurance companies. In order to qualify for an Accountable Care Organization, the group, hospital or doctors must have an ability to provide primary care for at least 5000 patients or more