Fletcher Allen Health Care, a 419-bed hospital in Burlington, Vt., and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health, a system that includes a 371-bed flagship hospital in Lebanon, N.H., said they submitted an application to the CMS to participate in a shared-savings program for Medicare patients in Vermont.

The organizations submitted their application to the CMS on Sept. 6 and expect to receive approval later this year, said Todd Moore, senior vice president of accountable care and revenue strategy at Fletcher Allen Health Care.

The joint initiative, which also includes every hospital in Vermont except 25-bed Porter Medical Center in Middlebury, is called OneCare Vermont. Along with Fletcher Allen's 300 primary-care physicians, other private physician practices and clinics in Vermont are planning to participate in the program.

Dartmouth-Hitchcock's specialists will participate. However, the hospital's primary-care physicians, who are part of Dartmouth-Hitchcock's Pioneer ACO model, will not participate in OneCare Vermont, according to a spokesman for Dartmouth-Hitchcock.

Talks between the two organizations, which share several clinical collaborations, began in 2011.