ACO Pioneers ask for delay in pay-for-performance plan

The 32 hospital systems that were the first to begin testing the Accountable Care Organization model under the ACA last year are demanding changes and delays to some of the program's central tenants (Source: “A Bump in the Road to Accountable Care?” Kaiser Health News, March 8, 2013).

In a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, 30 of the 32 systems, called Pioneers for their early participation in the ACO program, complaining that the quality measurements federal officials are using to determine payment to the ACOs were flawed. In light of what they consider flawed metrics, the pioneers requested that CMMI wait until 2014 to start basing Pioneer pay on quality, the hallmark of the program. The delay would give CMMI another year of good data collection to set benchmarks, the group wrote.