Robert Powell, III// March 22, 2018//
Lynchburg-based Centra Health has formed Centra Alliance, a program designed to provide patients with coordinated health services.
Approved by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Centra Alliance is an accountable care organization (ACO), which is designed to control costs, improve the quality of care and enhance the patient experience for Medicare patients.
Central Alliance is expected to provide a more complete level of care for patients. Under a traditional health-care payment system, providers and health systems are paid on a fee-for-service basis. Under the ACO model, payment will be based on health-care providers’ performance in measurable ways.
Centra Alliance, for example, may set a clinical protocol for cholesterol treatment. It then would measure a physician’s ability to treat cholesterol and monitor patients’ results.
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