– Regence and MultiCare ink first-in-the-nation value-based
care partnership to deliver improved health outcomes at lower costs.
Health insurance provider Regence
and MultiCare Health System,
an independent accountable
care organization (ACO) have partnered to deploy a first-in-the-nation value-based model
that delivers better health outcomes to members at lower costs while
simplifying administration for health care providers. Regence serves
approximately 3.1 million members through Regence BlueShield of Idaho, Regence
BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Utah and
Regence BlueShield (select counties in Washington). The new approach between
Regence and MultiCare Connected Care—the Accountable Care Organization that is
a wholly owned subsidiary of MultiCare Health System—marks a milestone in the
evolution of value-based partnerships between insurance payers and providers.
Da Vinci Member Attribution List Standard for Value-Based
Arrangements
The partnership will leverage utilized a soon to be
published HL7® FHIR® (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources) Standard
“Da Vinci Member Attribution List” which was developed by the HL7® Da Vinci Project for
value-based arrangements. This national standard provides an
interoperable method to share member attribution data assisting in reducing the
burden on provider organizations managing patient data and allowing providers
to spend more time with patients. The Regence and MultiCare partnership establish
a foundation for the development of future population data interoperability
applications, such as the exchange of data for measuring care quality and
outcomes.
Why It Matters
Value-based arrangements result in improved outcomes, lower
costs and fewer care gaps for health plan members, and higher patient and
provider satisfaction. Providers are eligible to earn financial incentives by
meeting established targets for patient outcomes, costs and satisfaction
scores.
By creating efficiencies and security in delivering patient data to providers more frequently, it allows provider organizations to spend less time acquiring the data and more time with the patient.” said Melanie Matthews, president of MultiCare Connected Care. “It frees up providers to do the work of population health and helps us embrace our mission of partnering for a healing and healthy future.”
–
PointClickCare announces its intent to acquire Collective Medical to create the
largest combined acute and post-acute care network in North America for $650M.
–
Collective Medical’s platform connects more than 1,300 hospitals, thousands of
ambulatory practices and long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) providers, as well
as accountable care organizations (ACOs) and every national health plan in the
country, across a 39-state network.
– With the acquisition of Collective Medical, PointClickCare will solidify its position as a high-growth, cloud-based SaaS leader, serving a large, diversified customer base across the acute, ambulatory, post-acute, and payer spectrum.
PointClickCare
Technologies, a leader in senior care technology with a network of more
than 21,000 skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities, and home
health agencies, today announced its intent to acquire Collective Medical, a Salt Lake
City, UT-based leading network-enabled platform for real-time cross-continuum
care coordination for $650M. Together, PointClickCare and Collective Medical
will provide diverse care teams across the continuum of acute, ambulatory, and
post-acute care with point-of-care access to deep, real-time patient insights
at any stage of a patient’s healthcare journey, enabling better decision making
and improved clinical outcomes at lower cost.
The acquisition follows a partnership, created between the
companies in August 2019, which streamlined the integration of Collective
Medical’s solution for care transitions with PointClickCare’s leading
cloud-based software platform. Hundreds of PointClickCare customers are already
leveraging this connection to the Collective platform to coordinate seamless
care transitions and influence decisions at the point of care.
COVID-19 Underscores Barriers to Care Coordination
Currently, hospitals, ACOs and health plans
lack the data and tools to effectively coordinate with LTPAC providers and
other disparate points of care – an issue spotlighted further by the COVID-19 pandemic.
And despite the healthcare system’s ongoing move to value-based payment
models, barriers to care coordination
persist, especially for seniors and other complex patient populations. Through
this acquisition, the company will be uniquely positioned to address these
challenges.
PointClickCare supports a network of more than 21,000
skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities and home health agencies.
In the United States, 97 percent of all hospitals discharge patients to skilled
nursing facilities using PointClickCare. Founded in 2005, Collective Medical’s
platform connects more than 1,300 hospitals, thousands of ambulatory practices
and long-term post-acute care (LTPAC) providers, as well as accountable care
organizations (ACOs) and every national health plan in the country, across a
39-state network.
These providers come together via the Collective platform to
support patients suffering from a variety of complex conditions, including
substance use disorder, mental and behavioral health issues, and other care
needs requiring multiple interventions and transitions across disparate care
settings. The combination of PointClickCare and Collective Medical will enable
care to be more seamlessly delivered for the most complex (high-cost,
high-needs) patients, including the rapidly growing aging population.
The acquisition will connect care teams, post-acute
providers, hospitals and health plans with better data about their patients,
ultimately reducing administrative burdens and bringing down the high costs of
complex care. Providers and health plans will be empowered as they work to
solve the complexities around the senior patient population by leveraging
increased information across diagnoses groups and unprecedented access to drive
behavior change at the point of care.
Acquisition Establishes PointClickCare As Leader in Acute and Post-Acute
Care Network
With the acquisition of Collective Medical, PointClickCare
will solidify its position as a high growth, cloud-based SaaS leader, serving a
large, diversified customer base across the acute, ambulatory, post-acute, and
payer spectrum. As the shift to value-based care fuels growing market demand
for intelligence and collaboration tools, the company will be best positioned
to provide the most fully integrated set of real-time care coordination tools
across the entire continuum of care, powered by the largest network of its kind
in the U.S.
“The healthcare ecosystem is a mix of disconnected providers, systems, plans, processes and data. Healthcare costs and risk are on the rise, while patient care and provider-to-provider coordination are inconsistent. Our mission is to improve the lives of seniors, and we believe the best way to meaningfully advance this goal is by connecting disparate points of care,” says Mike Wessinger, founder and chief executive officer of PointClickCare Technologies. “Collective Medical offers the right fit of people and technology and together we will initiate a new era of data-enriched collaboration across the continuum that radically transforms how data and people are empowered to liberate health.”
The acquisition is subject to receiving regulatory
approvals, including from The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United
States (CFIUS), and other customary closing conditions, and is expected to be
completed by the end of December 2020.
Neela Montgomery, EVP & President at CVS Pharmacy/Retail
CVS Health Corporation names Neela Montgomery Executive Vice President and President of CVS Pharmacy/Retail, effective November 30, 2020. Montgomery will oversee the company’s 10,000 pharmacies across the United States. Montgomery, currently a Board Partner at venture capital firm Greycroft, most recently served as chief executive officer of furniture retailer Crate & Barrel and has nearly 20 years of global retail experience.
Frank McGillin, CEO at The Amwell/Cleveland Clinic Digital Health Company
Egbert van Acht, Executive Vice Chairman to the Board of Directors, Amwell/Cleveland Clinic Digital Health Company
The Cleveland Clinic and Amwell joint venture appoint Egbert van Acht as Executive Vice Chairman to the Board of Directors and Frank McGillin as CEO. Formed one year ago as a first-of-its-kind company to provide broad access to comprehensive, high-acuity care via telehealth, the company has made great progress scaling digital care through its MyConsult® offering. With an initial focus on clinical second opinions, the organization also offers health information and diagnosis on more than 2,000 different types of conditions including cancer, cardiac, and neuroscience issues.
Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D., SVP at WELL Health
Healthcare industry veteran Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D. has joined Well Health Inc. as Senior Vice President, Value-Based Care, and Population Health. In her new role, Dr. Safran will expand WELL’s uses to improve healthcare quality, outcomes, and affordability through partnerships with payers and Accountable Care Organization (ACO) providers.
Cory L. Haynes, VP, Financial Services Strategy at Talkdesk
Greg Miller, Vice President Industry Strategy, Healthcare & Life Sciences
Talkdesk®, Inc., the cloud contact center for innovative enterprises appoints Cory Haynes to lead Talkdesk’s strategy for the financial service industry and Greg Miller to lead the strategy for healthcare and life sciences. Haynes and Miller are key members of the Talkdesk industries team led by Andrew Flynn, senior vice president of industries strategy for Talkdesk.
Mark McArdle, SVP Products & Design at Imprivata
Imprivata appoints Mark McArdle to Senior Vice President of Products and Design. Mr. McArdle has more than two decades of experience in software development, Software-as-a-Service (Saas), in Cybersecurity, and advanced products for the enterprise, SMB, and consumer markets.
Jack Stoddard, Executive Chairman at Eden Health
Eden Health names Jack Stoddard as executive chairman of its board of directors. Formerly serving in COO roles for Accolade and Haven, Stoddard brings two decades of healthcare innovation and operating experience to the board position, providing leadership, wisdom, and counsel during a time of monumental growth and adoption for the company.
Saurav Chatterjee, PhD., CTO at Augmedix
Augmedix names Saurav Chatterjee Chief Technology Officer. Prior to joining Augmedix, he most recently served as Vice President of Engineering at Lumiata, Inc., where he led the engineering team that built a leading AI platform, focusing specifically on transforming, cleaning, enriching, featurizing, and visualizing healthcare data, and on building, deploying and operationalizing machine learning and deep-learning models at scale.
Philip Vecchiolli, Chief Growth & Strategy Officer, Tridiuum
Tridiuum, the nation’s premier provider of digital behavioral health solutions names Philip Vecchiolli has joined the company as Chief Growth and Strategy Officer. Vecchiolli, who brings over 30 years of experience to the new role, has a successful track record of leading business development for large and mid-size healthcare companies.
Janet Dillione, CEO of Connect America
Connect America appoints Janet Dillione as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Prior to joining Connect America, Dillione worked in the healthcare information services industry as CEO of Bernoulli Enterprise, Inc., GM of Nuance Healthcare, and CEO of Siemens Healthcare IT.
Health Catalyst, Inc. announces that current Chief Financial Officer Patrick Nelli has been named President, effective January 1, 2021. Following Nelli’s promotion to the President role, Health Catalyst has named Bryan Hunt, current Senior Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis, Chief Financial Officer, also effective January 1, 2021.
Two additional promotions, also effective January 1, 2021, include Jason Alger, Senior Vice President of Finance, to Chief Accounting Officer, and Adam Brown, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, to Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Planning & Analysis.
Rick Howard, Chief Product Officer at Apervita
Apervita hires health IT veteran Rick Howard as Chief Product Officer. In his role, Rick will oversee product vision, innovation, design, and delivery of Apervita’s digital platform, which enables digital quality measurement, clinical intelligence, as well as value-based contract monitoring and performance measurement.
Roberto Simon
Conversion Labs, Inc. appoints Roberto Simon to its board of directors and as the chair of its audit committee. Following his appointment, the board now has eight members, with six serving as independent directors. Mr. Simon currently serves as CFO of WEX (NYSE: WEX), a $6+ billion fintech services provider.
Dr. Isaac Rodriguez-Chavez, Ph.D., MHS, MS.
PRA Health Sciences, Inc. appoints senior FDA official Isaac Rodriguez-Chavez, Ph.D., MHS, MS, as Senior Vice President, Scientific and Clinical Affairs. He will lead the company’s Global Center of Excellence for Decentralized Clinical Trial (DCT) Strategy. Dr. Rodriguez-Chavez’s responsibilities will involve the continued growth and development of PRA’s industry-leading decentralized clinical trial strategy, regulatory framework creation, and clinical trial modernization.
Proprio appoints three global thought leaders to its Medical Advisory Board. Dr. Sigurd Berven, Orthopedic Surgeon and Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Charles Fisher, Professor and Head of the Combined Neurosurgical & Orthopedic Spine Program at Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Ziya Gokaslan, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Brown University and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital will apply their globally respected surgical and research expertise to the development of the Proprio navigation platform.
Andrew Bindman, MD, EVP & Chief Medical Officer at Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente names Andrew Bindman, MD Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. In this role, Dr. Bindman will collaborate with clinical and operational leaders throughout the enterprise to help lead the organization’s efforts to continue improving the high-quality care provided to members and patients throughout Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Bindman will report directly to Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO Greg A. Adams.
Dr. Michael Blackman, Chief Medical Officer at Greenway
Greenway names Dr. Michael Blackman Chief Medical Officer at Greenway. Dr. Blackman will further support the company’s ambulatory care customers, ensuring providers are equipped with the solutions and services they need to improve patient outcomes and succeed in value-based care.
Suki expands its leadership team with six key hires to support the company’s rapid commercial growth. Tracy Rentz, formerly Vice President of Implementation at Evolent Health, joins Suki as the Vice President of Customer Success and Operations to lead all customer operations, with a particular focus around deploying new Suki customers. Brian Duffy brings over 20 years of sales experience to Suki, joining the team as Director of Sales-East, after having most recently served as Regional Director at Qventus, Inc. Brent Jarkowski will also join Suki’s sales team this November as the Director of Sales-West, bringing over 15 years of experience in strategic relationship management. Brent joins Suki after serving as Senior Client Development Director at Kyyrus. Together, Brian and Brent will head the company’s efforts in building new partnerships across the country. And Josh Margulies, who previously served as the Director of Integrated Brand Marketing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, will serve as Suki’s new Senior Director of Field Marketing.
Vanessa Kuhn, Director of Health Policy, PatientPing
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) created the Direct Contracting Model to expand opportunities for more diverse providers and healthcare organizations to participate in value-based care arrangements for Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries.
The goal of the new model is to create the next generation of risk-sharing arrangements to improve outcomes for patients, lower costs, and ensure high-quality care. In developing the Direct Contracting model and associated payment options, CMMI decided to build on lessons learned from accountable care initiatives, in particular, the Next-Generation ACO (NGACO) Model, as well as Medicare Advantage and other innovative private payers. The new model specifically aims to attract providers new to Medicare FFS and Innovation Center models: “the payment model options appeal to a broad range of physician practices and other organizations because they are expected to reduce burden, support a focus on beneficiaries with complex, chronic conditions, and encourage participation from organizations that have not typically participated in Medicare FFS or CMS Innovation Center models.”
High risk equals high reward for the new Direct Contracting Entities (DCE). The payment model options that participants can choose from aim to (1) increase risk-sharing arrangements through capitated and partially capitated population-based payments, (2) include providers and organization new to Medicare FFS, (3) increase access and empower beneficiaries in their care, and (4) decrease provider burden by emphasizing only core quality metrics and making certain care delivery waivers available. Importantly, the model offers options for new entrant DCEs, meaning DCEs that have no or limited experience with Medicare FFS beneficiaries and associated Medicare risk-based contracts, as well as high needs DCEs that will focus specifically on high cost, high acuity beneficiaries.
The Direct Contracting model begins with an optional six-month implementation period on October 1, 2020, which is intended to support organizations that need additional time to align beneficiaries and optimize their care coordination and management functions. In light of COVID-19’s overwhelming impact on healthcare this year, CMMI announced the first Direct Contracting Model performance year will start April 1, 2021—a three-month delay from the original start date, with five performance years to follow. The second cohort of Direct Contracting participants will begin in January 2022.
Risk-Sharing Options:
The Innovation Center will initially test two risk-sharing options:
Professional – includes a 50% shared savings/shared losses provisions and Primary Care Capitation, a capitated, risk-adjusted monthly payment for enhanced primary care services that’s equal to seven percent of the total cost of care benchmark for enhanced primary care services
Global – is 100% full risk option with either Primary Care Capitation or Total Care Capitation, which is a capitated, risk-adjusted monthly payment for all services provided by Direct Contracting Participants and preferred providers.
CMS may test a third option, the Geographic Option, in the future, which would also be a 100% risk arrangement offering an opportunity for participants to assume the total cost of care risk for Medicare FFS beneficiaries in a defined region.
Achieving Success in the Direct Contracting Model:
Similar to existing accountable care models, critical elements to achieve success in the Direct Contracting model include a focus on workflows, systems, and partnerships that support care coordination activities, including connections to needed healthcare and wrap-around services, as well as supporting providers in attaining quality benchmarks while managing overall utilization. Underlying these capabilities is access to real-time actionable information to drive timely interventions and coordination activities.
Real-time information through admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) event notifications for Emergency Department, hospital, or post-acute encounters enable care coordination teams to deploy workflows and resources to more easily and quickly support patients. Knowing when and where patients are receiving care and understanding the clinical context for their care allows providers and care teams to more seamlessly work together to provide the right care at the right time without unnecessary or duplicative interventions. It also allows care teams to identify patients at high risk for complications, including readmissions and can prompt time-sensitive outreach and connection to additional resources.
Having access to real-time information can not only improve patient outcomes and quality but will also help to maximize payment incentives for Direct Contracting participants. Coordinated care consistently leads to shorter lengths of stay, which not only has positive quality implications for patients but also financial benefits for Direct Contracting Entities.
In addition, healthcare organizations can use real-time information to continuously strengthen and refine care network partnerships and collaborations.
Bottom Line:
To effectively manage Medicare FFS patients within the Direct Contracting Model, participants will need to coordinate with other providers across care settings and deploy timely interventions that support patients’ health and well-being. Real-time information, through ADT data, will provide participants with a new level of clinical intelligence to successfully prioritize and deploy care coordination services and ensure seamless transitions of care for patients while also creating optimal opportunities to achieve shared savings.
About Vanessa Kuhn, Ph.D
Vanessa Kuhn, Ph.D., is the Director of Policy at PatientPing, a care collaboration platform that provides real-time visibility into patient care events across the continuum. PatinetPing works with hospitals, post-acutes, health plans, ACO’s and beyond, the platform connects providers across the nation to improve patient and organizational outcomes.
More than ever, the system selected to provide telemedicine services must provide added controls to overcome factors that are outside the control of the provider.
Move over patient engagement: A positive patient experience is the new imperative for health systems that recognize the value of customer satisfaction.
