MultiCare Health System and Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM), one of the country’s leading health and well-being companies, announced a new Accountable Care arrangement and partnership focused on improved health for Humana’s Medicare Advantage members in South King County and Pierce County.
The partnership is expected to result in more coordinated care for Humana membership with an increased emphasis on preventive services. Humana offers Medicare Advantage HMO plans, a prescription drug plan and Medicare supplement policies to Medicare recipients in the Tacoma area.
MultiCare is made up of five hospitals including Allenmore Hospital, Auburn Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital and Tacoma General Hospital, numerous outpatient specialty centers, primary and urgent care clinics, as well as a variety of other services and community outreach programs. The not-for-profit health care organization has more than 10,500 employees and a comprehensive network of services throughout Pierce, South King, Thurston and Kitsap counties.
“We are pleased to collaborate with Humana on innovative care models focused on improving access to services that are patient- and family-centered,” said Bill Robertson, President and Chief Executive Officer of MultiCare Health System. “This is a natural partnership and we are pleased that Humana members can benefit from the quality of care provided at our hospitals and clinics.”
“Most traditional health care systems revolve around sick care and paying for services rather than paying for healthier patient outcomes,” said Catherine Field, Market Director of Senior Products for Humana in Washington. “Humana is transitioning to a fully-accountable, value-based model that aligns incentives to health systems, like Multicare, for improving the health and well-being of our members.”
Humana aims to work closely with doctors and hospitals through its Accountable Care Continuum. The continuum is a stepped approach to pay-for-value reimbursement that allows the company to implement different value-based partnerships with hospitals and doctors based on their infrastructure and value-based reimbursement capabilities.
The new MultiCare Health System and Humana agreement will bring better patient care coordination, more cost effective, quality care and a world-class patient experience to Humana members in South King County and Pierce County. The arrangement will offer more personalized care and a broad range of population management tools like predictive analytics and chronic care, disease management and wellness programs. The arrangement also emphasizes quality outcomes with a focus on care coordination and leverages measures as defined by the National Committee for Quality Assurance Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set like diabetes care and treatment, breast cancer screenings, colorectal cancer screenings and high-risk medication.
Humana has a 26-year accountable care relationship history with more than 1.2 million members today that are cared for by 38,000 primary care physicians, in more than 900 Accountable Care relationships across 43 states and Puerto Rico.
