One year into an accountable care organization, Norton Healthcare and Humana officials can point to results—which is more than anyone expected at the outset.
As hospitals, medical groups and commercial insurers grapple with how to launch an accountable care network and Medicare officials debate final rules for ACO shared-incentive payments, Norton, which owns four Kentucky hospitals, and insurer Humana have a year's worth of results from a limited pilot.
So far, their test has produced minor savings and more pronounced gains for some quality measures.
“That was not our goal for the first year,” says Dr. Thomas James III, corporate medical director of national network operations for Humana, who says officials expected new strategies adopted during the first year would need time before producing results.