Today, Skylight Health Group Inc. ( $SLHG ) announced the acquisition of ACO Partners LLC
ACO Partners is an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) that will begin participation in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) offered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on Jan 1 2022.
An ACO is a "group of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers that work together on your care" (webMD)
ACOs tie provider reimbursements to information they gather about the quality of care and reductions in the cost of care.
ACOs are especially beneficial when working with patients who have long-term illnesses like Heart Disease and Diabetes. This is because if the ACO can show that the patient is improving, they will get paid more from medicare
This is because if the patient is improving they will be less likely to require expensive health interventions later on
ACOs follow a value-based care principle, which is exactly in line with SLHG's goals
Some main benefits that Skylight expects to see from this acquisition:
-Under the MSSP, Skylight expects to receive up to 40% of the shared savings realized through programs and services aimed at optimizing patient outcomes and reducing the cost of care in one year
- after entering full risk contracting they could see up to 75% of shared savings
- through the ACO, Skylight will benefit from the opportunity to contract with national payors on managed care programs such as Medicare Advantage
You can watch their CEO unpack the news here, it is an especially good watch if you want to know more about ACOs :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqPZ5WVIaok
or read more about it here:
https://ceo.ca/@nasdaq/skylight-health-acquires-aco-partners-and-enters-value-based