ACO Final Rules Released

This story was updated at 5:35 PM ET Thursday, October 20, 2011.

Federal health, trade and anti-trust agencies on Thursday released their long-awaited set of final rules governing accountable care organizations, with major concessions to the original plan that had soured many healthcare leaders and physicians against participating.

The final rule includes more generous shared savings incentives, deletes 32 of the 65 original quality measures, and gives ACO candidates more time to get started.

A critical change is that the rule no longer requires that 50% of participating physicians be approved under meaningful use requirements for electronic health record use. >>>MORE