AMGA's Accountable Care Collaborative - Phase II
Transforming to a Value-Based System of Care

Register here.

The American Medical Group Association is launching the next phase of its Accountable Care Collaborative: Transforming to a Value-Based System of Care. Medical groups are invited to join this yearlong shared learning program. Phase II of the Collaborative will focus on the fundamental organizational, systems, and culture changes necessary for successful transformation to a value-based system of care, regardless of the path chosen—CMS’s Shared Savings Program, the Pioneer ACO Program, commercial ACOs, or other models yet to emerge. Our goal is to create a rich collaborative experience providing participants with practical solutions and strategies specific to their situation.

Why Join AMGA’s Accountable Care Collaborative?
Many AMGA members have been preparing to become accountable care organizations for some time and are aware that the changes required are enormous. This is not a journey for the uncommitted or faint of heart! Through shared learning, AMGA’s Accountable Care Collaborative can help member organizations achieve fundamental changes that will be required to succeed.

For over a decade, AMGA has used learning collaboratives as a valuable tool for organizational performance improvement. Each collaborative creates a community of knowledge that helps participants accelerate systemic change and make lasting breakthroughs in quality, service, and efficiency. Through the collaborative, AMGA can leverage scarce resources and access to content experts and practice experience while supporting the learning community with dedicated e-forums, a members-only website, and monthly webinars.

Most importantly, members will shape the content, scope, and direction of the learning process. The collaborative will be member-driven―participants will determine educational content priorities and will share what they have learned so that others in the collaborative can adopt what has worked and avoid what has not.

Collaborative Structure
The Collaborative will be structured for participants following five basic pathways to a value-based system of care:

CMS Share Savings Program
CMMI Pioneer ACO Program
Commercial ACOs
Medicare Advantage
Getting Started on an ACO (Pathway Not Chosen)

Organizations transforming to a value-based system via one of the pathways above will need to address the following aspects of this endeavor:

Organizational Commitment
Physician Leadership and Engagement
Commitment to Quality
- Metrics
- Transparency
- Process Improvement
- Data Integration
Clinical Integration: Specialty, Acute, Post-acute
Care Redesign
Collaboration/ Partnerships
Managing Risk Infrastructure

Focusing on the areas above, the collaborative will be structured as a blend of workshops that will bring members together in one location and webinars for distance learning. Workshops will consist of general sessions for all members and breakout sessions focused on the specific pathway categories. Key faculty for the collaborative will include representatives from AMGA members that are well on their way in the journey of transforming to value as well as other experts in the field. An ACO Listserv will enable members to share strategies in real time, and white papers and compendiums will be prepared to provide future resources.

The Collaborative Challenge
Redesigning healthcare organizations to focus on value requires a system-wide revolution. Care based solely on fee-for-service payments to a variety of unconnected physicians, hospitals, and ambulatory clinics needs to give way to coordinated, integrated courses of treatment aimed at delivering high-quality care at lower costs to an entire population of patients, including those who have not previously engaged with a healthcare organization. Prevention and primary care need to be stressed as much as treatment of the sick.

In order to produce successful clinical and financial outcomes, the elements of organizational structure and governance, partnerships that share a common vision, and care designed to promote health and functionality all must be robust and systematically working together. Second and equally as important, the payment systems must move away from rewarding the provision of more care toward rewarding better care. And, organizations that have operated successfully under fee-for-service need to find a way to make the transition to value-based payment and still remain viable during the transformation. The bottom line is that the successful accountable care organization must produce significant cost savings.

Most experts believe that the savings will come from three sources:

More efficient care in the acute and post-acute setting. Patients who need acute or post-acute care often receive care that is not beneficial, or experience setbacks because of lack of coordination. Widely cited studies of the Dartmouth Atlas researchers show that care in acute settings varies greatly across the country, with little impact on patient survival or satisfaction.¹
Preventing acute illness. The only way to minimize the cost of acute episodes of care is to prevent them from occurring―in other words, to prevent the failure of ambulatory care. Preventative care is still haphazard in many markets today. In the U.S., only 43 percent of patients with diabetes receive all recommended screenings, as opposed to over 60 percent in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.² If our payment system promoted better primary care to manage diabetes, as much as $2.5 billion could be saved from avoiding hospitalizations.³
Reducing administrative costs. Coordinating among the many different providers in the U.S. involves significant administrative expense. Due to the lack of interoperable information systems, an enormous amount of time is spent on documentation, obtaining appropriate permissions, and ensuring appropriate reimbursement. A recent study estimated that administrative costs account for 39 percent of the difference in the cost of hospital and physician care between the U.S. and Canada.⁴

The total amount that could be saved through more-efficient operations is enormous. The studies noted above suggest that about 30 percent of medical care spending is not associated with the improved health of patients or improved outcomes, and another 10 percent is wasted in administrative costs. The amount to be saved may be as high as 40 percent of total medical spending, or over $2 trillion annually in the next decade.⁵

How to Join
When you join the Collaborative, we ask that you designate a team of leaders and managers who are prepared to fully participate in the Collaborative activities including in-person meetings, webinars, listservs, and the dedicated website. It is expected that Collaborative members explicitly agree to open sharing of challenges, solutions, expertise, and learnings over the course of the journey to value-based care.

To register, click here or e-mail Joyce Jones at jjones@amga.org or log on to our website at www.amga.org to enroll and pay by credit card. Once you have registered, you will receive an invoice from AMGA. The cost to members is $10,000; the cost to non-members is $20,000.

This fee allows you to send four of your leadership and/or management team to the meetings. Travel and lodging will be at the participant’s expense, but food and beverages will be provided as described in the meeting materials issued prior to each meeting. You may also have an unlimited number of people participate in the webinars and on the listserv and have unlimited access to the ACO website for your group.

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AMGA's Accountable Care Collaborative - Phase IITransforming to a Value-Based System of Care

AMGA's Accountable Care Collaborative - Phase II
Transforming to a Value-Based System of Care