Considering throwing your name into the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) applicant pool? Curious to see what type of coordinated efforts across multiple providers CMS has in mind?

You can now read HHS’ list of 32 inaugural ACOs, all of whom were chosen due to being established partnerships with “experience offering coordinated, patient-centered care, and operating in ACO-like arrangements,” according to a CMS Innovation Center statement.

You’ll face less risk and fewer administrative hassles if you choose to participate in an accountable care organization (ACO), thanks to changes made in the final ACO rule, released today in the Federal Register. CMS took pains to review feedback from physician advocacy groups and believes the final rule takes many of their biggest concerns into account, top agency officials said during a conference call with reporters.

Your peers feel most challenged by new, upcoming physician payment models that put more financial risk on practices and by earning Medicare's electronic health record (EHR) incentive bonus, according to the latest research from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA). The organization's fourth annual "Medical Practice Today: What Members Have to Say" report, based on email responses from 1,190 MGMA members, found the following five issues to be the top challenges of running a practice ...

CMS is launching three new initiatives relating to Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) that have nothing to do with the ACO proposed rule, but come instead from the agency's new Innovation Center. Remember: The Innovation Center was established by the health reform law as a testing ground for new Medicare payment models aimed at curbing the unsustainable cost of the nation's priciest entitlement program.

You would get a five-year vacation from the massive Medicare pay cuts called for by the sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula -- if AMA President Cecil B. Wilson had his way. In his testimony before Congress, Wilson calls for a "three-pronged approach" to reforming Medicare's physician payment system. It starts with a permanent repeal of SGR, a five-year period of "stable payment updates that keep pace with the growth in medical practice costs" and a transition to new payment models.