Heartland Physicians ACO Achieves Medicare Shared Savings for Performance Year 2016

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced the 2016 performance year results for the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) that show physicians, hospitals and health care providers participating in Accountable Care Organizations continue to make significant improvements in the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, while achieving cost savings. In 2016, 31 percent of MSSP ACOs achieved shared savings.

Only two out of nine MSSP ACOs with beneficiaries in Iowa earned Shared Savings. Heartland Physicians ACO was one of these, generating over $2.3 million in savings (a savings rate of 4 percent) in the first year of ACO work, while improving the quality of care for over 6,100 beneficiaries in Heartland practices across Iowa. Heartland practices include Grand River Medical Group in Dubuque, Kappos Family Medicine in Polk City, Madison County Medical Associates in Winterset, Shenandoah Medical Center in Shenandoah, and Stephen J Veit, MD PC in Cherokee.

This Iowa-based ACO was built by a group of dedicated primary care physicians and administrators, who came together to share best practices around patient-centered care, improve the health of patients and populations, reduce unnecessary health care costs, and prepare physicians and practices for success during the transition to value-based healthcare.

"We believe these results are due to the extraordinary efforts by our physicians, nurses, staff and our partnership with MedLink Advantage," reported Kevin de Regnier, DO, Board Vice President of Heartland Rural Physician Alliance and Heartland Physicians ACO. "These high results were achieved despite the fact that Medicare's historical payment benchmark for Iowa is significantly below the national average."

Heartland ACO members focus on patient-centered care and achieving better health outcomes for patients. With access to actionable, impactful data through a partnership with MedLink Advantage, LLC and CMS, ACO members are able to provide better care to patients, while reducing the cost of the services. Heartland Physicians ACO successfully reported 100% of their ACO quality metrics to CMS, showing excellent quality across the metrics.

"We are very pleased to report that our organization had significant shared savings in Heartland ACO in 2016, the first full year of reporting," de Regnier indicated. "Through expert data analysis, our members were able to improve patient care, reduce overall health care costs and reap the benefits of being a part of the ACO."

Heartland Physicians ACO received pre-paid shared savings funds from The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CCMI) for staff and infrastructure that supports population care management, financial management and other essential ACO functions. CMMI deducted the prepayment from Heartland Physicians ACO shared savings prior to any distribution to Heartland Physicians ACO.

Medicare ACOs are groups of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers, who come together voluntarily to provide coordinated high-quality care to their Medicare patients. 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. When an ACO exceeds quality and financial thresholds ? demonstrating achievement of high-quality care and wiser spending of health care dollars ? it is able to share in the savings generated for Medicare.

MedLink Advantage is an ACO Management and Healthcare Consulting company with extensive experience in the healthcare arena. MedLink utilizes a simplistic approach for working with practices that demonstrates success, while not overwhelming ACO participants.