Help you stay well.
Your care team can put more attention on screenings, preventive care, and chronic-condition support.
For patients and families
More coordinated care. Your choices stay yours.
Accountable care helps your clinicians work together around your health, your goals, and the care you receive between visits. It is designed to make prevention, follow-up, and support easier to reach.
Original Medicare stays in place · Your covered benefits stay in place · You keep your freedom to choose Medicare providers
Your clinicianThe relationship you trust stays central
Your choicesYou keep freedom under Original Medicare
Your care planTeams coordinate around shared goals
Your accessCare can reach across settings
Accountable care, in plain language
What is an ACO?
An Accountable Care Organization, or ACO, is a group of doctors and other care organizations that works together to improve the quality, coordination, and overall cost of care for people with Medicare.
Help your care connect.
Your clinicians can share permitted information and coordinate after referrals, hospital stays, and medication changes.
Help important needs get owned.
A clearer care plan can show who is responsible for the next step and whether it was completed.
What stays yours
Your benefits. Your doctors. Your decisions.
Being aligned with an ACO does not replace your Medicare benefits or turn Original Medicare into a restricted network.
You keep Original Medicare
ACO alignment changes how participating clinicians coordinate and accept accountability. It does not replace Original Medicare.
You can see any Medicare-enrolled provider
You remain free to seek medically necessary care from any Medicare-enrolled provider, even if that provider is not part of the ACO.
You can choose your main source of care
LEAD includes a voluntary option that lets eligible people identify the practice or clinician they consider their main source of care.
Your information remains protected
Health information may be used and shared only as permitted by law, program rules, notices, agreements, and your applicable choices.
Access to care
Care can meet you in more than one place.
The right setting depends on your health, preferences, location, clinician's judgment, available services, and coverage.
Primary and preventive care
Your regular practice remains the center for longitudinal care, prevention, and chronic-condition management.
Home-based support
Appropriate services may be available at home for people whose health or mobility makes access difficult.
After hospital or post-acute care
Coordination can help your ongoing care team understand what changed and what needs to happen next.
Specialty and community resources
Your care plan may connect specialists, pharmacists, behavioral health, social supports, and caregivers.
The LEAD Model
Designed for more than one kind of Medicare patient.
LEAD is not only a senior-care or high-needs program. It is a CMS accountable care model for a broader range of eligible people with Original Medicare.
A broad Original Medicare population
Eligible people may qualify for Medicare based on age or disability and receive care across many levels of need.
People living with end-stage renal disease
LEAD recognizes ESRD as a distinct category that requires focused clinical and financial design.
People with complex care needs
CMS uses defined clinical and claims-based criteria to identify this category; a patient does not need to label themselves.
Who may be eligible
LEAD has specific Medicare rules.
This page is general information, not an eligibility determination or a notice that Sphere is currently providing care to you.
Original Medicare
Eligible people generally have Medicare Parts A and B, with Medicare as their primary payer.
Not Medicare Advantage
People enrolled in Medicare Advantage or another Medicare managed-care plan are not eligible for LEAD alignment under current CMS rules.
Service area
A person must live in the United States and in a county included in the participating ACO's approved service area.
Individual confirmation
CMS and the participating ACO determine alignment and eligibility. Services depend on clinical need, coverage, availability, consent, and program rules.
Have an immediate medical need?
This website is not a clinical service, medical advice, or emergency channel. Contact your clinician for care questions. Call 911 or local emergency services for a medical emergency.
Patient-choice and LEAD descriptions are based on current CMS materials. Model features and individual eligibility can change.