Foley Issues White Paper On Accountable Care Organizations And Their Role in National Health Reform
Foley announced today that attorneys on its Health Care Industry Team have issued a white paper titled, “Transforming Health Care Through Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs): A Critical Assessment.” This paper offers an in-depth look at the business, financial, operational and legal challenges facing ACOs in this new era of health reform.
Among the timely topics covered:
- How ACOs are addressed in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
- Organizational and structural options for ACOs.
- Significant financial, payment, technological and practical issues that providers will confront in moving toward ACO arrangements and away from fee-for-service payment models.
- Principal legal issues that ACOs face and that must be addressed for ACOs to accomplish their intended goals.
- Recommended actions that organizations should take now, proactively, to prepare to take advantage of ACO opportunities.
The authors delve into the numerous challenges for ACOs to overcome if they are to change our health care system to a model with better quality care and reduced costs. They suggest that a number of the issues addressed in the white paper can be readily solved by the proper structuring of the ACO from the outset, and believe the greater risk to providers lies in seeking to implement an ACO without being aware of the potential pitfalls and ways to avoid them.
To read or download a copy of Foley’s white paper on ACOs, please visit: http://www.foley.com/publications/pub_detail.aspx?pubid=7574.
Foley’s Health Care Industry Team is consistently ranked a top health care practice by Chambers USA. The firm’s health care attorneys assist a broad range of clients, including national provider associations, national health care systems, and regional and local providers with creative legal thinking and practical industry experience. With a firsthand understanding of health care’s business and legal challenges, Foley advises industry and government leaders in the development of major health care policies and has helped shape the development of some of the nation’s largest health care systems.