Washington, DC, November 8, 2024 – Multiple member organizations of America’s Physician Groups (APG) generated net savings for the federal government while also earning shared savings payments as participants in the ACO Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health (ACO REACH) model in 2023, according to results released today by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). These APG members were part of a corps of 132 total ACO REACH participants that produced strong improvements in cost control and quality over the model’s 2022 performance year.
“These newly announced results show that APG members and other participants in the ACO REACH model can get better as they go,” said Susan Dentzer, president and CEO of America’s Physician Groups. “We’re especially gratified to see such strong performance among so-called High Needs ACO REACH participants, which serve older adults with significant chronic or other serious illnesses and signs of frailty.” These Medicare beneficiaries are frequently hospitalized if they don’t obtain preventive care, Dentzer noted. For these High Needs Population ACOs, the quality score for average days at home for these frail beneficiaries improved by more than 5 percentage points in 2023.
Overall, ACO REACH participants in 2023 generated more than $690 million in net savings – or 2.6 percent of what they were originally paid to provide care by Medicare –and also earned shared savings payments of more than $940 million, or 3.4 percent. These results compare $371.5 million in net savings to CMS and $484.1 million in shared savings in 2022. CMS attributed the increases to performance improvements by model participants as they gained experience and growth in model participation.
The newly released results reflect the third year of testing of the ACO REACH model, which began as the Global and Professional Direct Contracting model in 2021. The growing success of the ACO REACH model points to the need to plan for a successor model to continue testing and refining similar direct contracting ACO approaches once the ACO REACH model expires on December 31, 2026, Dentzer said.
APG will continue to evaluate the results in coming days and determine how much in net and shared savings and quality improvements its members contributed. Meanwhile, APG salutes its participating organization members, which include Agilon, Astrana Health, Bloom Healthcare, CareAllies, CenterWell, Harmony, Honest, Oak Street Health, One Medical Senior, Southwestern Health Resources, Triad, VillageMD, and Wellvana, among others.
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About America’s Physician Groups
America’s Physician Groups is a national association representing approximately 360 physician groups with approximately 170,000 physicians providing care to nearly 90 million patients. APG’s motto, “Taking Responsibility for America’s Health,” represents our members’ commitment to clinically integrated, coordinated, value-based health care in which physician groups are accountable for the costs and quality of patient care. Visit us at www.apg.org.
