Study: New Medical Care Networks Show Savings

The New York Times reported that a new model for delivering medical care, one promoted by the federal health care law, holds promise for slowing the cost of treating the sickest, most expensive patients, according to a new study.

"The study, published last week in the The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that a predecessor to accountable care organizations achieved particular savings in caring for patients eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid.

Many of those patients have multiple, severe health conditions and are especially expensive: The nation’s nine million “dual eligibles,” as they are known, make up 15 percent of the Medicaid population but account for 39 percent of the program’s spending.

In the predecessor program, a Medicare experiment that ran from 2005 to 2010, 10 doctors groups from around the country received bonus payments if they met quality targets and achieved lower cost growth compared with Medicare spending on other patients in their region.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, found that the growth in spending per “dual eligible” patient slowed by $532 a year, or 5 percent, after doctors groups joined the demonstration program."