NJ Spotlight: Inner Cities Ready, but Waiting, to Formalize Medicaid ACOs

NJ Spotlight reports that inner-city hospitals and physicians are waiting for federal regulations that will enable them to launch Medicaid Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), which are designed to cut costs while improving care primarily through reduced ER visits.

Although the final regulations are still several months out, urban health providers have hardly been sitting on their hands: In fact, they've been working for years to create coalitions committed to improving healthcare for the poor.

In Newark, efforts to improve care to the city’s low income residents is being led by the Greater Newark Health Care Coalition, headed by Dr. John Brennan, CEO of Newark Beth Israel Medical Center.

“We are very interested in establishing either an ACO, or an ACO-like structure, for the provision of Medicaid services in Newark,” said Barry Ostrowsky, CEO of Barnabas Health, parent of Newark Beth Israel.

“The ACO is designed to provide greater efficiency in the provision of care,” Ostrowsky said. “Its intent is to create an organization that takes out the seams between the physicians and the institutions and outpatient care -- so it’s really something that conceptually makes a great deal of sense.”

Last year, New Jersey enacted legislation calling for ACOs to be created in Newark, Camden, Trenton, and other cities, and to formalize their alliances as government-sanctioned Medicaid ACOs. The ACOs would receive a portion of the money Medicaid saves by reducing unnecessary ER and hospital use for reinvestment into improving public health services in their communities.

However, since the Medicaid program is financed 50/50, they still need the federal government's approval.

Read the full article in NJ Spotlight, NJ’s Inner Cities Ready, but Waiting, to Formalize Medicaid ACOs

NJ Spotlight is an online news service providing insight and information on issues critical to New Jersey.