Five Key Features of Accountable Care Organizations

1. Local Accountability: An ACO would be a local provider entity accountable for the local care according to local cost and quality benchmarks
2. Purchaser Designation: An ACO would be designated by a purchaser to be accountable to serve its covered population assigned to the ACO
3. Shared Savings: The ACO would modify provider payment structures in some form to incorporate payment incentives such as sharing of savings with applicable stakeholders
4. Performance Measurement: An emphasis would be placed on performance measurement, including evidence based quality metrics
5. Organizational Capacity: The ACO would be a formal legal entity with capacity to arrange and coordinate care, administer payments, set benchmarks, measure performance and distribute shared savings.