Texas ACO invests in the Quanum portfolio to improve patient care
Premier Management Company (PMC) manages 3 accountable care organizations (ACOs) in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. Two of the 3 ACOs participate in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP): Premier Patient Healthcare, with 250 doctors, and Premier Care Community, with 150 doctors.
PMC, which started in 2013 with 12 physicians, is physician-owned, physician-led, and patient-driven. The organization provides coordinated services to its 47,000 Medicare beneficiaries. The goal is to increase quality while reducing costs for those who are enrolled in the traditional fee-for-service program, while also allowing the member physicians to maintain their independence. In 2016, PMC was ranked 12th in shared-savings earnings among national MSSP ACOs, received $26.3 million in total shared savings, and earned a quality score of 97.32%
Even with this success, PMC ACO still saw areas they wanted improve upon:
- Quality: Some Premier physicians did not meet the minimum threshold in performance when attesting for Meaningful Use (MU) because they were still using paper charts; Premier was concerned about upcoming penalties for MACRA if changes weren’t made
- Cost: Premier was struggling with too many lab vendors, driving up costs and the ability for clinicians to receive data quickly
- Data frequency: Medicare claims to ACOs came from CMS every 3 months – this was too long to wait to take action on the information being provided
- Actionable insights: Needed to manage information faster to better monitor their patient population, and to make more informed decisions for patient care
