Dive Brief:
- Cleveland's University Hospitals has struck a deal with health plan giant UnitedHealthcare under which the two will form an ACO, designed to save employer customers money and coordinate care better.
- The ACO, which launches Feb.1, is a relatively small project, as it will cover just 19,000 participants currently receiving care from UH providers; however, it's UH's fifth and UnitedHealthcare's second ACO in Ohio. UH now has 170,000 patients in its pediatric, employee, commercial and Medicare ACOs.
- Under the agreement, University Hospitals will do more to coordinate care for UnitedHealthcare beneficiaries; for example, it will provide the health plan with monthly updates on patients, and maintain a secure patient registry.
Dive Insight:
Here at Healthcare Dive it's been interesting to watch, over the past few weeks, as health systems announce ACO deals with health insurance players. While pulling together hospitals and doctors offices into ACO is perfectly reasonable, it may make even more sense for health systems to partner with health plans when they build an ACO. After all, when a health system works with a payer, both sides have a chance to learn more about how to optimize reimbursement and coordinate care, whereas an ACO that only includes providers must work to justify its efforts to payers, an extra step it's well to avoid in this competitive environment.