Overlap Between Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement Program and Accountable Care Organizations

Overlap between Medicare’s Comprehensive Care for Joint Replacement (CJR) model and accountable care organizations (ACOs) may result in positive or negative synergies. In this study, we describe the overlap between the programs at the beneficiary and hospital levels.

We conducted a retrospective study of patient and hospital characteristics using data from 2016 Medicare claims, the US Census Bureau, the American Hospital Association annual survey, Hospital Compare, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation file. On the beneficiary level, we conducted 2 comparisons: (1) among patients who received joint replacement at CJR hospitals, ACO patients ( overlap) vs not ( CJR-only) and 2) among patients who received joint replacement elsewhere, ACO patients ( ACO-only) vs not ( neither). On the hospital level, we compared hospitals in the top quartile of overlap rate (high overlap) vs those in the bottom 3 (low overlap).

We studied 14,519 overlap, 38,972 CJR-only, 26,872 ACO-only, and 68,945 neither beneficiaries. Compared with CJR-only patients, the overlap group was less likely to be older than 85, of black race, of low socioeconomic status, and burdened with clinical complications. Similar results were observed when the ACO-only group was compared with the neither group. Compared with low overlap hospitals, high overlap ones were more likely to be of nonprofit and less likely to be of safety net.

CJR-ACO overlap is associated with differences in beneficiary and hospital characteristics, which raises key issues for providers and policymakers.