Three cost-saving features serve as the "bones" of the A-ICU's design:

• "First Floor": Intensive Upstream Risk Reduction. Relies primarily on non-physicians to optimize patient self-management motivation and skills, thereby dramatically reducing the need for traditional physician-delivered health care services.
• "Second Floor": IT-Enabled Cost-Efficient MD and NP Visits. Uses an advanced EHR, leveraging of medical assistants and nurse practitioners, instant all-phone specialist consults, and selective in-sourced specialist services to produce primary care visits and high frequency specialist care visits at much lower costs.
• "Third Floor": Performance-Based Selection and Continuous Management of the Balance of the Health Care Supply Chain. Leverages a partnership with a large insurer to obtain specialist and hospital "all-in" cost-efficiency and quality profiles to select the best specialist, hospital, pharmacy, and other provider partners for the A-ICU and continuously optimize their performance.