With all the other pressures now directed at doctors in the form of medical malpractice insurance requirements, medical billing problems, and the push toward more sophisticated electronic health record systems, there are also big changes coming along in terms of government reimbursement for medical procedures. One of these proposed changes comes in the form of Accountable Care Organizations or ACOs that may replace other reimbursement models for government entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

In government materials presented to the public by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on the Healthcare.gov website, the federal government describes the adoption of Accountable Care Organizations as “paying physicians based on value, not volume.” This goes along with other recent descriptions of these Affordable Care Act provisions by legislative and executive political figures. The debate over Accountable Care Organizations has been somewhat vigorous: some government figures and others contend that these changes will help to provide medical offices with incentives to perform more applicable treatments to patients depending on their specific health conditions. Critics of the programs say that they could lead to “rationing care” as doctors evaluate the mandates of the affordable care act in a down economy.

According to Healthcare.gov, these changes are expected to be effective January 1 of 2015. This gives offices just three years to anticipate what ACOs would contribute to the overall climate of medical billing and reimbursement for their practices. The creation of Accountable Care Organizations by the new healthcare reform act is only part of what worries many providers about taking on Medicare and Medicaid patients. It seems like each year, physicians struggle with changing reimbursement models and potential delays or downgrades in payments. Many doctors fear that the fundamental changes proposed in the new legislation may compound this difficulty, but like all of the other pressures related to medical billing, forward thinking doctors can meet with staff to plan detailed responses to issues around Medicare and Medicaid billing, in order to develop intra-office strategies that will help to streamline the payments that the medical provider can expect, not just from government programs, but from private insurance companies and patients alike. It takes creative and proactive measures to get a practice’s medical billing activities running at full speed, and the doctors with the most successful accounts receivable outcomes usually work hard at encouraging their staff to work smarter, and in many cases, harder, to resolve billing issues. This holiday season, doctors with qualms about upcoming health care mandates should take a page from this playbook, even if it means a few extra hours at the office.