Patient Experiences in ACOs

Caravan Health ACOs create an environment where care coordination can thrive. Care coordination is all about relationships – both with the patient and between providers. Some patients need help with such basic tasks as transportation to primary care appointments. Having a skilled nurse helping patients with getting to appointments and picking up prescriptions can dramatically increase compliance with treatment and follow up. This can encourage patients to take further ownership and accountability for their own health.  Providers and patients both notice a difference with the care coordination made possible by Caravan Health ACOs.

Caravan Health ACOs are prepared for success on CMS-required quality measures. Our ACOs have access to up-to-date training on those measures, including best practices for raising scores. Each provider has population health nurses dedicated to improving quality. Our strong analytics platform makes sure providers have all the data they need to keep tabs on quality performance and achieve ACO success.

In 2017, Caravan Health partner hospitals showed great improvement in quality scores, scoring better in 13 out of 14 reported. Highlights include our hospitals showing a 43 percent reduction in uncontrolled diabetes and increasing diabetes eye exams by 15 percent.

On average, high performing non-ACO practices have lower MIPS scores than their counterparts in an ACO. ACOs have a few advantages when calculating quality scores, including having claims data to find missing results, six weeks to polish data, and reporting is required on just a sample of attributed patients. 

Hospitals can avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties – and earn bonuses – by working with Caravan Health and enrolling in an ACO to get all the benefits that MIPS has to offer. There has been a lot of discussion recently about where MIPS is headed in the future. Caravan Health is committed to getting our partners on solid footing no matter the outlook for the MIPS program.