Dynamics in the health care system trigger ACO concerns

The traditional wariness that exists between doctors and hospitals, as well as worries related to anti-trust issues, raise questions about which players have the advantage as the specifics regarding accountable care organizations take shape. Meanwhile, ACOs finally have an advocate.

Politico Pro: ACO Concerns Focus On Hospitals, Market Share
The perennial wariness — some might even say mistrust — that doctors have for hospitals is becoming an issue in the accountable care organization rulemaking, as physicians are warning that the new program could heighten the advantages hospitals have over them. There's also growing concern that the antitrust policies that will be applied to the program will be too quick to declare that the providers in an ACO have too much market share — making the tests essentially meaningless (Coughlin, 5/27).

CQ HealthBeat: At Last, A White Knight For The Medicare ACO Proposal
Medicare's battered and bruised proposal for accountable care organizations has been badly in need of some love from somewhere outside the Humphrey Building. And now a leading health policy analyst has stepped up. Paul B. Ginsburg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, writes in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that the criticism of the proposed rule for ACOs came "fast and furious" from providers, with most saying that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) had set the bar too high (Norman, 5/26).