Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) Grow/Massive Mergers in Hospital Sector

An additional change in health care delivery, since the passage of the Affordable Care Act, has been the growth of “accountable care organizations,” or ACOs. An ACO is a network of doctors, hospitals and other providers that take a coordinated approach to care for patients. The health care reform act offers financial rewards to ACOs that meet targets for quality of care and cost. The hope is that these networks will be able to eliminate duplicated or unnecessary tests and other procedures while developing more efficient electronic health records on their patients. The goal of the electronic records is to enable all caregivers involved in an individual's care to remain fully informed about that patient’s unique needs and medical history.

One of the most dramatic results of the health care reform act to date is consolidation within the hospital industry, with mergers creating massive organizations that in many cases have dominant market share in major markets. Hospital firms have been merging aggressively, while also making investments in outpatient clinics and acquiring physician practices at a rapid pace. This consolidation of care providers under one roof means greater pricing power for ever-larger hospital chains while creating an environment of lessened competition in the marketplace and fewer choices for consumers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been blocking a few of these hospital mergers over concerns that they stifle price competition, but the FTC’s response may have been too little and too late.

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Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) Grow/Massive Mergers in Hospital Sector, Business and Industry Trends Analysis

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