An Accountable Care Organization (ACO) can be considered a group of physicians, hospitals, and other healthcare providers that band together voluntarily to offer coordinated, high-quality care to their Medicare beneficiaries. Coordinated care aims to eliminate medical mistakes and wasteful duplication of services while ensuring that patients receive the appropriate care at the appropriate time. An ACO will participate in the savings it generates for the Medicare program when it is successful in providing high-quality care and using healthcare expenditures more wisely.
For information about ACO, please view guidance on this topic from:
- the U.S. Department of Justice;
- the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services;
- Medicare.gov;
- Healthcare.gov.