On October 15, 2014, CMS announced the availability of a new initiative for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.
The new ACO Investment Model is designed to coordinate care to rural and underserved areas by providing up to $114 million in upfront investments to up to 75 ACOs across the country. Through the CMS Innovation Center, this initiative will provide up front investments in infrastructure and redesigned care processes to help eligible ACOs continue to provide higher quality care. This will help increase the number of beneficiaries -regardless of geographic location -that can benefit from lower costs and improved health care through Medicare ACOs. CMS will recover these payments through an offset of an ACO's earned shared savings.
Eligibility is targeted to ACOs who joined the Shared Savings Program in 2012, 2013, 2014, and to new ACOs joining the Shared Savings Program in 2016. The application deadline for organizations that started in the Shared Savings Program in 2012 or 2013 will be December 1, 2014. Applications will be available in the Summer of 2015 for ACOs that started in the Shared Savings Program in 2014 or will start in 2016.
For more information, visit the ACO Investment Model web page.