INDIANAPOLIS
– Franciscan Alliance Accountable Care Organization today (July 16) announced
it achieved $13.3 million in cost savings in 2012 as a Pioneer Accountable Care
Organization.
As
part of the first-year savings and its agreement with Medicare, Franciscan Alliance
ACO
will receive $6.6 million, nearly half of the achieved cost savings. The shared
savings will be split among the hospitals and physicians participating in the
program in 2012.
With
hospitals in Indianapolis, Mooresville
and Carmel and care providers throughout central Indiana, Franciscan Alliance
ACO serves more than 20,000 Medicare beneficiaries in south-central Indiana. The
Franciscan Alliance ACO works with the Centers for Medicare
& Medicaid Services (CMS) to provide Medicare beneficiaries with higher
quality care while reducing growth in Medicare expenditures through enhanced
care coordination.
The
Franciscan Alliance ACO worked with hospitals, physicians and other community
care providers to improve communication and information sharing about its
patients. Among the programs instituted to achieve these cost savings are a
critical care case management program, a continuing care network with long-term
acute care facilities and dedicated chronic disease case managers.
“We are pleased with the results of these cost savings and
the level of service we deliver to our patients,” said Jennifer Westfall, regional vice president for Franciscan ACO. “The ACO model
encourages organizations such as hospitals, physician practices and other
health care providers to collaborate closely, thus bringing down the overall
costs of medical care.”
The Pioneer ACO Model is not the health
system’s only ACO formation. In July 2012 the Franciscan Alliance and American
Health Network ACO was created and serves about 28,000 Medicare patients in
central Indiana, providing primary and a variety of specialty care services.
That same year, the Pioneer ACO was expanded to Franciscan Alliance’s Northern
Indiana Region.
Early in 2013, Franciscan Alliance and Union
Hospital of Terre Haute established Franciscan
Union ACO, serving 14,000 patients primarily residing
in west-central Indiana. Plans also are under way to expand the ACO model to Franciscan
Alliance’s Northern Indiana and Western
Indiana regions later this year.
“Medicare ACOs are a key strategy for Franciscan Alliance to
help reform our delivery system,” said Jay Brehm, senior vice president of Strategic Planning and Business Development.
“This is particularly critical as we move away from fee-for-service
medicine toward a system focused on creating greater value for patients and
bettering population health.”
