One part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Actthat's hit American health care like the British Invasion areaffordable care organizations, or ACOs. At first, there were just afew, then some more and now they're all over the place, just as TheBeatles, The Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks and other groupstook over American pop culture in the 1960s.

In an ACO, doctors, hospitals, Medicare, providers and patientscome together like John, Paul, George and Ringo to coordinatehealth care with the idea of improving quality and reducing costs.When PPACA was passed, ACOs were touted as a way to lower healthcare expenditures under Medicare and encourage collaborative careamong providers. ACOs now have been around long enough to quantifysome results of their efforts, even though the transition hasn'tbeen easy. By all appearances, ACOs are going to be around while sobenefits brokers and agents should possess a better understandingof ACOs to better serve clients and beneficiaries.