Federal regulators recently unveiled a new accountable care organization model they feel will appeal to long-term care operators.

The providers most likely to bite: those with a greater appetite for risk, and those who want to play a more central role in care coordination. At least, that’s the prediction from Patrick Conway, M.D., acting principal deputy administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

“It can have a very positive effect on the post-acute arena,” he told reporters during an Association of Health Care Journalists webinar on care delivery. “If you are in a partially capitated arrangement, you are incentivized to keep a person from being readmitted to the hospital, to keep them in the skilled nursing facility and then going home.”

The program also would let beneficiaries enter skilled nursing care without a prior hospitalization.