A partnership designed to improve care for Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries in southeast Michigan, while making the best use of Medicare dollars, has expanded.

Two new medical practices have joined the 1,700 doctors of the University of Michigan Health System’s Faculty Group Practice, and the 310 providers in the IHA physician group, in one of the nation’s first accountable care organizations (ACOs).

The new additions are members of Huron Valley Physicians Association. They are the four physicians who provide care at the two non-profit primary care locations of Packard Health, and Deborah Peery, M.D., a general internist in Saline, MI.

Originally founded in late 2011, the University of Michigan ACO is one of just 32 “pioneer” ACOs in the country—approved by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of a broad effort to improve and better coordinate the care that patients receive.  More than 26,000 Medicare participants who live in Washtenaw, Livingston and Wayne counties are considered beneficiaries of the U-M Pioneer ACO.

“We are very glad to welcome the Packard Health physicians, led by Dr. Raymond Rion, and Dr. Peery to our ACO, and know they will help us continue to improve care for more Medicare beneficiaries than ever before,” pioneer ACO Medical Director Timothy Peterson, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the U-M Medical School, said in a statement.