Dive Brief:
- Scripps Health and SCAN Health Plans have entered into a co-branding agreement to develop new products and services for seniors, the organizations said July 14. No details were released.
- The new agreement extends a partnership that began in 2007 with the launch of the SCAN Medicare Advantage plan in San Diego County. Currently, SCAN has about 12,000 members in San Diego served by Scripps' network of providers and community-based programs.
- San Diego-based Scripps Health is a $2.5 billion private, nonprofit, integrated health system with four hospitals and 2,600-plus affiliated physicians. Long Beach, Calif.-based SCAN, one of the largest not-for-profit MA plans in the U.S., has 170,000 members in California and Arizona.
Dive Insight:
Announcing their co-branding, the organizations cited a shared mission of keeping seniors healthy and independent. SCAN was among a handful of so-called social HMOs serving frail elderly Medicare beneficiaries under a federal demonstration program that began decades ago. When the program ended in 2008, the plan adopted new strategies with a continuing focus on meeting seniors' needs.
Seniors want healthcare choices. But many Medicare beneficiaries told Kaiser Family Foundation researchers in a May study of focus groups that they didn't want to switch plans because the process of initial plan selection was so frustrating. While cost is heavily weighed in their plan selection, a number of seniors said they hadn't considered changing plans even though their costs had risen. Seniors said they had tried to compare costs, coverage and provider networks, but found it confusing.
Given such dynamics, it seems that a co-branding effort could reap benefits for the two long-established healthcare giants in southern California. Once seniors find a healthcare product, they tend to stick with it.