Health care professionals have recently taken on a new entity called an accountable care organization (ACO) to make overall improvements to the health care industry. This entity is being created in various cities among groups of local doctors and hospitals with the hopes that it will make health care more affordable.
ACOs Spurred by Health Overhaul Law
Hospitals and doctors around the country have begun to create ACOs with the idea that they would provide more efficient health care at reduced costs. The idea came from incentives handed out with the federal health overhaul law. If hospitals and local physicians could work among themselves to form companies that would link directly with health insurance companies and Medicare, they could earn financial rewards for saving health care dollars.
An ACO has already begun forming in Arizona at the Tucson Medical Center.