Accountable Care Organizations in the Safety Net: Barriers and Benefits

Event Description: The accountable care organization (ACO), a new care delivery model with the potential to improve quality while simultaneously reducing costs, is a key part of the Affordable Care Act.  Once an academic pipe dream, the ACO is already a reality in the commercial sector, and will soon be rolled out in Medicare via its Shared Savings Program.  Owing to the characteristics of both safety net providers and their patients, the safety net arguably has the most to gain from coordinated care strategies like the ACO.  But as this historic transition begins, the safety net may also be at the most risk of being left behind.  At UC Berkeley, a team of researchers from the both the legal and public health fields have been studying the potential for ACO formation in the safety net.  One component of the project is the development of a readiness assessment instrument for use by health providers.  The other consists of research on both the federal and state legal/regulatory barriers to ACO formation.  These barriers include, e.g., the corporate practice of medicine doctrine, state regulatory schemes that do not interface with the ACO model, and uncertainty about tax-exempt status.  The presentation will give an overview of the research team's findings.

About the Speaker: Matt Chayt is an attorney and 2010 graduate of UC Hastings College of the Law.  In 2011, he was selected for a fellowship at the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy.  There, he has been supporting several research projects on health, economic and family security.  Matt has previously worked at the Institute for Women's Policy Research, National Public Radio and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.