June, 2012

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) promotes Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) and the bundling of payments across providers for an episode of care (“bundled payments”), both of which encourage consolidation between hospitals and physician practices.

“Service-line management (SLM) is a combination of management and business planning techniques designed to improve the way healthcare is delivered. Service-line management involves identifying the different business units, or ‘service lines’ and understanding how they contribute to the trust’s performance as a whole, allowing clinicians and managers to deliver improvements in quality and productivity at the specialty level. Service-line management aims to ensure more effective use of resources to fund better patient care, benefiting both patients and taxpayers. In the longer term, it can contribute to improved quality and patient experience.” <<Click Here for Attribution>>