Changes in Low-Value Services in Year 1 of the Medicare Pioneer Accountable Care Organization Program.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

Wasteful practices are widespread in the US health care system. It is unclear if payment models intended to improve health care efficiency, such as the Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) programs, discourage the provision of low-value services.

Objective

To assess whether the first year of the Medicare Pioneer ACO program was associated with a reduction in use of low-value services.

Design, setting, and participants

In a difference-in-differences analysis, we compared use of low-value services between Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries attributed to health care provider groups that entered the Pioneer program (ACO group) and beneficiaries attributed to other health care providers (control group) before (2009-2011) vs after (2012) Pioneer ACO c

SUBMITTER: Schwartz AL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4928485 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature