Innovation that benefits only the privileged is not progress. While accountable care organizations helped show that a focus on value was missing from healthcare, new ACO priorities reflect that equity has been missing, too — for providers as well as patients. In its recent Strategy Refresh , the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation noted that its “Medicare-focused models have limited reach to Medicaid beneficiaries and safety net providers.” CMMI’s new ACO model and planned improvements to existing ones are designed to help more providers reap the benefits of value-based care. If it’s broke, fix it The objectives of accountable care are clear: higher quality at lower costs, involving less waste and a better experience for all. Those outcomes have not fully arrived. CMMI reports that “only six out of more than 50 models launched have generated statistically significant savings to Medicare and to taxpayers” since 2011. The reasons are many but include the need for a new standa...