Officials close to the rulemaking process for accountable care organizations say federal agencies overseeing antitrust enforcement are committed to making ACOs work.
Susan Devore, president and CEO of Premier, which runs an ACO collaborative with 24 health systems, says officials at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice were initially skeptical they could find a way for ACOs to work under existing laws. Now regulators are saying, "We're going to find ways to make it work," according to Ms. Devore, speaking at the National Accountable Care Conference in Los Angeles.
Demonstrating its commitment, the FTC has sent one of its senior attorneys to work within CMS on ACOs, according to Peter Lee, director of delivery system reform in the HHS Office of Health Reform, who was also at the ACO meeting. "No one wants to be playing, 'gotcha, surprise, this is illegal,'" Mr. Lee says.
Even though the way ACOs function would be clarified over time, FTC officials have balked at creating conditional rules that could be revised later, arguing that it's hard to remove rules after they are already in effect, Ms. Devore says. The federal agency also wants ACOs to guarantee cost savings so they don’t use expanded market power to raise charges, she says.
Ms. Devore says regulators are pointing to a model for ACOs to pass antitrust muster — a 10-year "certificate of public advantage" issued by the State of North Carolina to the Mission Health System in Asheville, N.C., allowing two hospitals systems to come together.
Read more on the National Accountable Care Conference.
Susan Devore, president and CEO of Premier, which runs an ACO collaborative with 24 health systems, says officials at the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice were initially skeptical they could find a way for ACOs to work under existing laws. Now regulators are saying, "We're going to find ways to make it work," according to Ms. Devore, speaking at the National Accountable Care Conference in Los Angeles.
Demonstrating its commitment, the FTC has sent one of its senior attorneys to work within CMS on ACOs, according to Peter Lee, director of delivery system reform in the HHS Office of Health Reform, who was also at the ACO meeting. "No one wants to be playing, 'gotcha, surprise, this is illegal,'" Mr. Lee says.
Even though the way ACOs function would be clarified over time, FTC officials have balked at creating conditional rules that could be revised later, arguing that it's hard to remove rules after they are already in effect, Ms. Devore says. The federal agency also wants ACOs to guarantee cost savings so they don’t use expanded market power to raise charges, she says.
Ms. Devore says regulators are pointing to a model for ACOs to pass antitrust muster — a 10-year "certificate of public advantage" issued by the State of North Carolina to the Mission Health System in Asheville, N.C., allowing two hospitals systems to come together.
Read more on the National Accountable Care Conference.