Survey: Only handful of respondents 'familiar' with ACOs
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However, the study also found that although the majority of respondents don’t have a high level of familiarity with ACOs, 92 percent of respondents are either in development, operational or the pre-planning process for ACOs. This is a notable increase when compared with how respondents answered the same question when asked in Beacon's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) Scalable study conducted earlier this year. In that study, only 47 percent of respondents said they were in the planning and development stages.
“Clearly, there is still a lot of confusion and uncertainty surrounding ACOs, but most healthcare organizations understand that they need to move forward with an ACO strategy,” said Kevin Burchill, director at Beacon Partners. “This is most likely due to the fact that many C-level executives are optimistic regarding the potential benefits that an ACO model will provide to their organization.
“However, it’s crucial for the industry to improve upon its communication of an ACO’s structure, rules and benefits. Otherwise there will continue to be some level of negativity surrounding ACOs,” Burchill concludes.
Other significant findings include:
- 45 percent of those surveyed have not committed money from their operating budgets to ACO planning efforts and 27 percent are unsure what their budget is for ACO planning;
- 49 percent of respondents said their CEO is the person responsible for ACO development;
- 53 percent of respondents have not yet created a department or executive role to develop an ACO;
- 44 percent of respondents have no plans to hire personnel to handle ACO development, and another 25 percent plan to reallocate existing personnel;
- 48 percent of respondents are unsure as to how an ACO will affect their organization; and
- 31 percent of respondents listed undefined rules and confusion of ACO structure as their top concern in the market, followed by high start-up costs (17 percent) and regulatory issues (14 percent).