Coastal Medical in Top 1% for Quality Nationwide Among MSSP ACO's
RI primary care driven ACO improves quality and saves $15.3 million in total cost of care under shared savings contracts with CMS and commercial payers in 2014.
Providence, October 26, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Coastal Medical, Rhode Island’s largest physician owned and governed Accountable Care Organization (ACO), announced today that they earned a quality score in the top 1% among the 333 MSSP ACO’s nationwide in 2014. The group also saved a combined $15.3 million across their federal and commercial shared savings contracts over the same one year period.
Coastal Medical has been engaged in shared savings contracts with various payers since the beginning of 2012. Their current partners in this work include Blue Cross Blue Shield of RI, UnitedHealthcare, Tufts Health Plan, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Each contract contains specific quality measures that relate to patient care, and Coastal strives to meet or exceed the target for a total of 143 quality measures, while at the same time attempting to reduce the overall cost of care for their patient population. The MSSP quality score was based on a set of 33 measures specified by CMS.
"These results are astounding and hard won," said Al Kurose, MD, Coastal Medical president and CEO. "We've learned that providing more clinical services to patients is the best way to reduce the total cost of care for a population of patients. We are spending more to save more. That seems counterintuitive, but efforts like our Coastal 365 clinic, our diabetes management program, and our team based model of care all help to ensure that we are delivering the right care, in the right place, at the right time. That makes care more cost efficient, and gets better outcomes for patients. That said, there is still much work left for us to do to improve the affordability of care and to ensure a more seamless experience of care for patients across the entire healthcare delivery system here in Rhode Island. "
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“These results are astounding and hard won,” said Al Kurose, MD, Coastal Medical president and CEO. “We’ve learned that providing more clinical services to patients is the best way to reduce the total cost of care for a population of patients. We are spending more to save more. That seems counterintuitive, but efforts like our Coastal 365 clinic, our diabetes management program, and our team based model of care all help to ensure that we are delivering the right care, in the right place, at the right time. That makes care more cost efficient, and gets better outcomes for patients. That said, there is still much work left for us to do to improve the affordability of care and to ensure a more seamless experience of care for patients across the entire healthcare delivery system here in Rhode Island. ”
In the process of reinventing their care delivery system for patients, Coastal created many unique new jobs - most of them clinical – to build teams that support providers and patients in the work to improve the quality of care and the health of the population of patients that Coastal serves. In 2014 and 2015 alone, Coastal has hired 151 new employees. Most new hires will be doing jobs that did not exist before the group became an ACO.