What the LEAD Model Means for Specialty Care and ACOs

What the LEAD Model Means for Specialty Care and ACOs

July 9, 2026 · 22 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the implications of CMS's LEAD Model for specialty care and ACOs with insights from industry experts.

Specialty care has long been one of the harder pieces of accountable care to operationalize. In this episode, Coral’s Joy Chen speaks with Theresa Dreyer, CEO of the Health Care Transformation Task Force, about what CMS’s Long-term Enhanced ACO Design, or LEAD, Model could mean for ACOs and specialty groups. They discuss why specialty engagement has been challenging across payer lines, how LEAD creates more formal pathways for ACO-specialist arrangements, what different types of specialty gro...

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