Although 20% of Medicare beneficiaries get care in rural America, rural health systems are typically far behind in population health management. Caravan Health, formerly known as National Rural ACO, provides population health programs for RHCs, FQHCs, hospital clinics and independent practices, and serves rural Accountable Care Organizations, Practice Transformation Networks, and Comprehensive Primary Care Practices across the country.

Caravan Health is in its third year bringing together rural providers across the country into 23 ACOs in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). Those 23 ACOs include more than 6,000 clinicians in 159 rural health systems covering 55 rural PPS hospitals, 92 Critical Access Hospitals, 168 Rural Health Clinics and 39 rural FQHCs serving more than 500,000 Medicare patients. The three years of experience has helped identify what’s worked well and what’s been a challenge.

Caravan Health now has 159 communities with lean forward leaders who are not waiting for the path to value-based purchasing, but who have chosen to create their own path. The challenge for rural providers is often in commitment and alignment. Moving to a new care model requires commitment, and some hospitals and physicians, even when they share a common mission, have difficulty aligning resources, trusting each other in a common pursuit, or getting consensus to jump in before they have to.

Please join the Caravan Health's Lynn Barr on Thursday, June 23rd, 2016 at 3PM Eastern as she discusses the state of rural ACOs and their lessons learned in the Healthcare Web Summit event: Rural ACOs in 2016: Challenges, Opportunities, Insights and Experiences.  Click here for detailed information and to register or call 209.577.4888.