CVS ACO, Catholic Health Partner on Long Island ACO REACH Program
CVS Accountable Care Organization Inc., a division of CVS Health, has entered into a collaboration with Catholic Health and Catholic Health Physician Partners’ ACO to expand value-based care for Medicare beneficiaries across the Catholic Health Physician Network in the New York area.
The partnership builds on Catholic Health's ACO program for more than 40,000 Medicare beneficiaries in Nassau and Suffolk counties.
Catholic Health and CVS ACO will jointly assume accountability for the health care of nearly 40,000 Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries under the ACO REACH program, which prioritizes health equity, the coordination of care among health care providers to improve outcomes, and the reduction of unnecessary medical costs by moving patients toward value-based care.
The partners said the collaboration, the first of its kind on Long Island, would help to strengthen care coordination for patients by providing customized support, such as home-based care, transportation support for annual wellness visits and linkages to services for addressing social determinants of health. Other goals include improving support for Catholic Health providers, especially primary care providers; enhancing the health system's care delivery service offerings, including adding same-day access, multidisciplinary chronic condition care management programs and analytics to allow physicians to provide top-of-license care; and utilize innovative value-based payments to incentivize providers.
"Catholic Health looks forward to working with CVS ACO and bringing these important care enhancements to our Medicare population," said Catholic Health President and CEO Patrick O'Shaughnessy, D.O., M.B.A., in a statement. He noted that the health system is the only Long Island-area participant in the CVS Accountable Care ACO REACH program. "As CVS's exclusive health system partner in the Long Island market, we will be able to reach more patients as a unified resource and will provide new equity-focused clinical programs and services at a time when access to high-quality health care is more important than ever."
"We know value-based care, particularly for Medicare beneficiaries, can help dramatically improve outcomes for patients who need it most and achieve lower costs," said Mohamed Diab, M.D., CEO of the CVS ACO, in a statement. "That's why value-based care as a framework is central to our broader care delivery strategy. CVS ACO is bringing to the table powerful tools to help provide coordinated, high-quality care to Medicare patients."
Diab noted the ACO REACH program enables CVS ACO to employ community-based assets such as MinuteClinic retail health clinics, as well as the company's data analytics and connected electronic medical record technology to support providers as they care for their most complex patients. The program also assumes administrative tasks such as appointment and lab scheduling assistance and provides actionable insights at the point-of-care to help providers offer more personalized patient care. Overall, he said, the partnership allows for more integration, data sharing and care coordination resulting in less fragmentation and ultimately the goal of better outcomes.
The partner said the collaboration builds on Catholic Health's Physician Partners ACO’s successes in the Medicare Shared Savings Program.
