Baylor ACO embraces future with lower volume of care

Baylor Quality Alliance President Carl Couch, MD, was trying to recruit a local 45-physician specialty group for Baylor Health Care System's new accountable care organization. The doctors wondered why they should pay $1,500 to join an organization whose aim is to reduce the number of procedures they perform. Couch asked if they believed there would be a lower rate of procedures done in the future. They did. If they joined BQA, Couch said, they would help the ACO define the basis for doing the procedures. Couch said the group would have to shrink if it wanted its physicians to be as busy as they are today.