ACO Forum CME
The Future of Healthcare and the ACOs For several years as I saw the beginnings of Obamacare arise from its primordial broth of words to its present status as the medical law of the land, it became painfully apparent to me that we needed to know more about it. It became even more apparent that this legislation would become one of the most far-reaching pieces of medical legislation in the history of the United States with implications effecting every patient and physician either directly or indirectly in the United States. It was apparent that change would happen within the law itself and medical upheavals would occur across the country. Eli Lerner, MD, FACS DCMS Immediate Past President
Yet we know very little about Obamacare. Unfortunately, much of the administration of the law has once again been given to non-medical people who have very little understanding of the problems we face daily in the care of our patients. I believe that a lot of this disconnect is because of us. With increasing clinical responsibilities and diminishing reimbursement, who has time to try to read and understand legislation that continues to change on a daily basis, much less work with it? We are boxed in by responsibilities to our patients, our clinic or practice obligations, our CME’s, and our families. Our time is a finite resource.
DCMS online . org
I thought that we could serve our membership by establishing a conference that would try to help us understand on a local level how Accountable Care Organizations, the basic structure of the health care interface, would affect the practice of medicine in the Northeast Florida Medical community. It took almost two years to get the conference going but it fills the need for local education on how to relate to the ACOs. Initial topics covered the future of health care in Northeast Florida, defining accountable care, starting an ACO, the experience of the pioneer ACO in North Florida, the payer’s perspective on integrated health systems, employer-based ACOs and the Ambulatory Intensive Care Unit’s place in ACOs. Attendance was very good, and attendees and participants left knowing more about the ACOs than they did before the meeting. The meeting dovetailed nicely with the Annual Caring Community Conference three months’ earlier and the Jacksonville University Health Care Conference a few weeks earlier. All three together form a very complete primer on Obamacare’s local effects and how they would be accomplished. I welcome you to this issue of our journal which reviews our conference on PPACA and lessons learned. – Eli Lerner MD, FACS
Northeast Florida Medicine Vol. 65, No. 1 2014 43