Accountable care organizations top a long list of should-bepriorities for the health care industry, a new survey finds, thoughby reviewing some numbers, you wouldn’t know it.

Despite health care finance executives saying there will be a“renewed focus on developing accountable-care partnerships”—withhalf saying it should be their top priority—just 9 percent say theyare currently focusing on it.

Though ACOs are “allowing health care businesses to share risk,help lower costs and improve quality,” only 56 percent agree that astrong accountable care organization network will trim spending andimprove the bottom lines of clinics and hospitals.

“The priorities for the industry as a whole differ from thecurrent priorities of individual organizations right now,” saysMitzi Winters, president and CEO, Global Healthcare Solutions,Firstsource. “This, coupled with financial system overhauls, iscreating an extremely complex environment for health care financeexecutives to navigate. Healthcare reform changes have takenprecedence and ICD-10 conversions have been put on the back burnerfor the time being.”

Similarly, 43 percent of those executives said health carereform changes should be prioritized as a whole for the remainderof the year, but only 22 percent said it actually was.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents indicated that meaningfuluse mandates were the top priority for their organization, followedby clinical and financial system conversions (27 percent). Onlythree percent of respondents said conversion to ICD-10 wascurrently a top priority for their organization.

The survey of 100 professionals in the healthcare financeindustry was conducted by Firstsource at ANI: The HFMA NationalInstitute on June 24-27 in Las Vegas.