ACO Contracting With Private and Public Payers: A Baseline Comparative Analysis

Objectives

The accountable care organization (ACO) model is currently being pursued by private insurers, as well as federal and state governments. Little is known, however, about the prevalence of private payer ACO contracts and the characteristics of contract structures or how these compare with public ACO contracts.

Study Design and Methods

Cross-sectional analysis of the National Survey of Accountable Care Organizations (n = 173) on ACO contracts with public and private payers and private payer contract characteristics.

Results

Most ACOs had only 1 ACO contract (57%). About half of ACOs had a contract with a private payer. The single most common private payer ACO contract was an upside-only shared savings model (41%), although the majority of private contracts included some form of downside risk (56%). A large majority of contracts made shared savings contingent upon quality performance (79%), and some included bonus payments for quality performance (39%). Most private payer contracts included upfront payments, such as care management payments (56%) or capital investment (17%). Organizations with private ACO contracts were larger and more advanced than ACOs with only public payer contracts.

Conclusions

While there are fewer ACOs with commercial contracts than public contracts, commercial contracts are more likely to include both downside risk and upfront payments.