Healthcare costs have been on the rise over the last few years and there are growing concerns over the financial stability of the Medicare program. There are also concerns regarding the aging of the Baby Boomers, the increase in average age of enrollees, and an insufficient tax base to cover future funding of the Medicare program. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) attempts to address some of these growing concerns by implementing laws and programs aimed at reducing healthcare costs. The Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) as well as the Pioneer program are two such initiatives.

This paper compares the MSSP and Pioneer ACOs and outlines their key features in terms of six major areas: payment arrangements, beneficiary alignment, interim payment methodology, benchmark methodology, trending methodology, and calculation of shared savings/losses.