Dive Brief:
- UnitedHealthcare has formed an ACO with two large Denver area physician practices, Primary Physician Partners and South Metro Primary Care; collectively, the two groups encompass more than 300 primary care providers, managed by Denver's Physician Health Partners.
- More than 20,000 patients enrolled in UnitedHealthcare's employer-sponsored health plans have access to the ACO.
- Doctors in the ACO will be eligible for financial incentives based on improvements in metrics including hospital readmissions, disease management and prevention, total cost savings and patient satisfaction scores.
Dive Insight:
During the next six months, I'd argue that such announcements are going to become common. While it may not be to everyone's liking in the group, having a payer drive the ACO is fairly logical, since arguably, they have the most to gain. I'm a little puzzled by the statistic that 20,000 patients enrolled in UHC's employer-sponsored plans have access the ACO -- I was imagining that millions might have access to the new organization, given the size of the players involved. Otherwise, I think such deals are going to become old hat very quickly this year. But