Being more efficient in care delivery has led to more than $2.6 million in Medicare savings by Community Healthcare System and its partner network of hundreds of independent care providers.
Through its subsidiary Community Healthcare Partners ACO (Accountable Care Organization) Inc., Community Healthcare System, which operates Community Hospital in Munster, St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago and St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, said savings came through streamlining processes and reducing duplicate services which led to improved patient outcomes. Community Healthcare Partners ACO is a partnership of 350 healthcare system providers and 600 independent providers who have been assigned 22,000 traditional Medicare beneficiaries with a goal of improving quality of care and reducing overall costs.
Community Healthcare System and other participating Medicare ACOs nationally, also work to be more proactive in a patient’s care to better manage their health including more timely intervention to either prevent development or worsening of chronic conditions including diabetes and heart disease, which can be costly to treat.
“The main objective of the ACO is to improve patient experience and overall health outcomes by providing high-quality services and care at the right time in the right setting,” said Dr. Alan Kumar, chief medical officer with CHP ACO. “With this model of care, we have been able to move forward implementing new programs and best practices that have had an immediate and positive impact for our patients.”
For more than a year, Community Healthcare System through Community Healthcare Partners ACO Inc. has worked to find ways to operate more efficiently as a participant in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.
According to Community Healthcare System, nationally the 548 health care systems participating in the Medicare ACO initiative, saved Medicare $739.4 million in 2018.
Streamlining care includes eliminating duplicate tests if a patient is working with multiple care providers. Investment and training in use of electronic records systems, for example, allows medical staff to access patient test results from multiple providers, which can reduce duplication of services, according to Community Healthcare System.
The Medicare savings program emphasizes a patient-centered, preventative care approach with the goal of reducing hospital stays as well as emergency department visits. Community Healthcare System ACO’s savings rate for 2018 was 0.9%.
“We are proud of the efforts of all CHP ACO providers and staff in accomplishing this first-year goal,” Kumar said. “Our partner physicians achieve this by expanding access to care, delivering more primary and preventative care services, referring to high-quality specialists and keeping patients healthy and out of the emergency department and our hospitals.”
