Mercy's High Quality Care Saves Taxpayers More Than $100 Million Dollars

ST. LOUIS, Sept. 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- High quality care that keeps patients healthy and lowers the cost for everyone is the key to sustainable health care. The latest Accountable Care Organization (ACO) results released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) prove Mercy is achieving those goals.

Mercy's ACO ranks in the top five in the country for the number of patients served and, with $102 million saved, the amount of total taxpayer savings. Of the 10 comparably sized largest ACOs in the U.S., the quality of care provided by Mercy ranks third and ranks highest in the communities Mercy serves.

CMS tracks more than 30 quality measures focused on care coordination, patient safety, appropriate use of preventive health services, improved care for at-risk populations and patient and caregiver experience of care.

"We put the patient first in all we do with the goal of keeping patients happy, healthy and out of the hospital as much as possible," said Dr. Gavin Helton, Mercy president of primary care. "Our approach to better health not only shows up in high quality scores but in turn decreases the cost of health care for everyone."

For 2024, Mercy's ACO saved taxpayers $102 million, an increase of $7 million over the previous year. In the last seven years, Mercy's ACO has saved taxpayers $462 million dollars.

"Preventive care is the starting point for every patient, and it's why we place so much emphasis on providing much-needed primary care for the patients we serve," said Steve Mackin, Mercy president and CEO. "With our ACO, we're seeing the enormous positive impact our approach has for our Medicare patients. At Mercy we provide this same commitment to all the 3 million plus patients we are privileged to care for each year, keeping patients healthy across all the communities we serve."

More than a decade ago, Mercy physicians were among the first in the nation to voluntarily participate in an ACO to better coordinate care for Medicare patients while eliminating unnecessary costs. To become an ACO and maintain the designation, Mercy must score high on specific quality measures and prove that its medical providers sustain streamlined team-based care.

Mercy, one of the 15 largest U.S. health systems and named the top large system in the U.S. for excellent patient experience by NRC Health, serves millions annually with nationally recognized care and one of the nation's largest and highest performing Accountable Care Organizations in quality and cost. Mercy is a highly integrated, multi-state health care system including 50 acute care and specialty (heart, children's, orthopedic and rehab) hospitals, convenient and urgent care locations, imaging centers and pharmacies. Mercy has over 1,000 physician practice locations and outpatient facilities, more than 5,000 physicians and advanced practitioners and more than 50,000 co-workers serving patients and families across Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Mercy also has clinics, outpatient services and outreach ministries in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. In fiscal year 2024 alone, Mercy provided nearly half a billion dollars of free care and other community benefits, including traditional charity care and unreimbursed Medicaid.

SOURCE Mercy