When I was doing my interview with Dr. Jonathan Bertman and John Mooney about the Pri-Med acquisition of Amazing Charts, Jonathan Bertman made a really interesting comment that stuck with me. I asked him how he thought that Amazing Charts would do in this world of hospitals acquiring medical practices. He said that they were evaluated the environment, but then he suggested something that I’d never heard suggested before.
He said that he was considering the idea of whether Amazing Charts could act as an ACO for its members. You could tell that this was an idea that hadn’t been fleshed out completely. Although, I found it a concept that was really interesting to consider. Could an EHR vendor act as an ACO for the doctors that use their EHR?
The key question to me is really whether an EHR vendor has enough adoption of their EHR in a given area to be able to create an ACO. I imagine an EHR vendor like MEDENT that has only focused on selling their EHR in about 5 states could have enough geographically focused EHR adoption to be able to support the ACO model.
I’ve heard a number of small practice doctors call their colleagues to action when it comes to ACOs. Their call usually includes a reminder to the days of HMO’s when they claimed that doctors weren’t part of the conversation and that they can’t let the same thing happen with ACOs. Could an EHR vendor help to bring all these small practices to the ACO bargaining table? Seems like an interesting idea worth exploring to me.
Interesting Idea….but not practical. This is not a new concept and has been looked into by the larger vendors.
The question is: what does it mean for an EHR vendor to “be an ACO”?