The American Medical Group Association (AMGA), a trade association representing multispecialty medical groups and other organized systems of care, today released its comments on the CMS Request for Information on Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). The comments were due and submitted on December 3, 2010. CMS has announced that the notice of proposed rulemaking on ACOs will be published early next year
Donald W. Fisher, Ph.D., CAE, AMGA's President and Chief Executive Officer, said: "CMS seems to be trying to gather more information about the 'shared savings' program in the healthcare reform law, commonly referred to as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), before proposed rulemaking. AMGA members have long delivered on ACO precepts, and we applaud Congress for this legislation and are eager to work with CMS to make the shared savings program successful. We hope that CMS follows our suggestions, which incorporate lessons learned by AMGA member participants in the Physician Group Practice Demonstration, the conceptual 'field test' for the ACO idea."
The comments, which took the form of answers to CMS' questions, included supporting transparency in patient attribution, i.e., prospective assignment and identification of participation to patients and the ACOs; suggesting that national policy objectives to serve underserved or disadvantaged populations be accomplished by offering incentives to integrators to bring practices that serve these populations into ACOs; and urging the Secretary of Health and Human Services to interpret the law to include Rural Health Clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers, and others in the ACO program.