Five Reasons Why Group Practices, Not Hospitals, Will Run ACOs

The American Medical Group Association, representing large group practices, played a central role in shaping accountable care organizations and sees group practices, and not hospitals, as the mainstay of ACOs, according to Chet Speed, vice president of public policy for AMGA. In ACOs' evolution, "we were there at the beginning," he says. CMS' five-year-long Physician Group Practice Demonstration, which sought to improve efficiency at group practices by coordinating care, was winding down when the healthcare reform bill was being drafted. AMGA, which claimed nine of the project's 10 participating group practices as members, proposed a new program based on the demonstration to Senate staffers.

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