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An Accountable Care Organization.

Frequently-Asked Questions

FAQs

Click Here for ACO FAQ (pdf) from the Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services.

  • What is an ACO?
    • Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) may consist of a group practice, or a network of doctors and practices, or a venture that includes doctors and hospitals, in each case united to provide coordinated high quality care to their Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries. The goal of coordinated care is to ensure that patients, especially the chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services and preventing medical errors.
  • What will Citrus ACO provide for me?
    • We will continue to provide quality, reliable and timely care at affordable costs. Our commitment is to improve the experience of your care, improving the health of our populations and reducing overall Medicare expenditures through improved coordination and communication.
  • Are my Medicare benefits changing because of the new ACO?
    • No. There will not be any changes to your Medicare benefits.
  • How will an ACO lead to an improved care for me?
    • You may not have to fill out as many medical forms that ask for the same information, the health care providers that you see all know what is going on with your health because they communicate with each other. You may not have to have the same medical tests done over and over because your results are shared among your health care team. The providers participating in the ACO will become partners with you in making care decisions.
  • How did the ACO's come about?
    • The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (PPACA) created Medicare ACOs.
  • I am a physician. How will my practice benefit from ACO?
    • ACO providers can choose to participate in a Medicare based shared savings model with no financial risk for the first three years of participation. The ACO participants have the potential to realize up to 50 percent of shared savings. By participating in an ACO, physicians may have access to agreements with payers that might otherwise exclude them, and will also have the opportunity to participate in the development of protocols for their Network providers and the governance of the ACO.
  • I am a physician. Is there any risk involved in the ACO model?
    • No. Participants are joining forces in reducing Medicare costs while improving the quality of care and benefiting from Shared Savings.
  • What will Citrus ACO provide for me?
    • We will continue to provide quality, reliable and timely care at affordable costs. Our commitment is to improve the experience of your care, improving the health of our populations and reducing overall Medicare expenditures through improved coordination and communication.
  • What Quality Assurance ACO Quality Measures will you be implementing?
    • CMS will measure quality of care using 33 nationally recognized measures in 4 key domains:
      Patient/caregiver experience (7 measures)
      Care coordination/patient safety (6 measures)
      Preventive health (8 measures)
      At-risk population:
      Diabetes (6 measures)
      Hypertension (1 measure)
      Ischemic Vascular Disease (2 measures)
      Heart Failure (1 measure)
      Coronary Artery Disease (2 measures)