Health and Social Care Essay

Accountable Care Organization (ACOs

An Accountable Care Organization (ACOs) is a consensual group of doctors, hospital and other medical care providers who have come together to provide high-quality health care to their patients by coordinating. The objective is to enable patients, especially the chronically ill, access the correct, timely and comprehensive care. ACOs also help reduce duplication of services or medical errors.  The problem with most health systems today is that patients get each part of their healthcare from different providers. ACOs were included in the law passed by the Congress, the Medicare Shared Savings Program. In it, health service providers are held jointly responsible for a patient’s health. In return they get additional INCENTIVES to cooperate and save money by streamlining the service delivery (Eichenwald, LaTour, Oachs & American Health Information Management Association., 2010).

Concurrently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented another strategy, called the Pioneer Program, targeting high-performing health service providers to take home more of the projected savings in exchange for assuming the bigger financial risk.Health and Social Care Essay