ACOs Can Harness the Power of Social Determinants of Health

Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) data provides critical insight into healthcare utilization and spending, care management and even risk of hospital readmissions that can impact Medicare reimbursement rates and Star ratings. ACOs can correlate spending trends with SDOH data to target cost containment efforts. They can also correlate utilization data (e.g., ED visits and acute care hospital days per 1,000 beneficiaries) with SDOH data to understand why certain patients access high-cost services and steer these patients toward lower-cost settings.

ACOs can integrate Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) into existing clinical workflows as well. Used at the point of care, SDOH can alert physicians to contact care coordinators immediately. They can also use this data to prompt other types of providers (e.g., care coordinators, health coaches or social workers) to ask questions that dig more deeply into potential risk factors, connect patients with social services and provide support in a variety of other ways.

Download our white paper to learn more about how ACOs can leverage social determinants of health data to mitigate risk and better define patient populations.