July 13, 2026
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center has released its third annual evaluation report for the ACO REACH Model, along with early results from performance year 2024, showing the model improved health-care quality and reduced gross spending across its first four performance years.
The findings offer strong evidence that accountable care organizations (ACOs) advance the Innovation Center's goals of improving affordability and quality for people with Original Medicare. Gross spending decreased, and quality improved more in 2024 than in any prior year, even as ACOs served a larger population of 2.5 million Medicare beneficiaries. Early results for 2024 also point to net savings for both standard and new-entrant ACOs, though those figures were not statistically significant.
ACO REACH concludes at the end of 2026, and lessons from the model will help shape the next generation of ACO design. Chief among these is the Long-term Enhanced ACO Design (LEAD) Model, which launches in January 2027 and will run for 10 years. LEAD improves benchmarking to appeal to a broader range of providers, including those serving specialized patient populations and those new to accountable care.
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