Aledade, a Bethesda, Md.-based company focused on physician-led accountable care organizations (ACOs), and UnitedHealthcare are working together in a new accountable care program with the aim to improve the quality of healthcare in Arkansas.
This partnership represents Aledade’s first accountable care program for Medicare Advantage plan participants, according to a press release. More than 15,000 people enrolled in UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare health plans are eligible to benefit from this collaboration.
Through the accountable care program, Aledade, which was co-founded by former National Coordinator for Health IT Farzad Mostashari, M.D., will look to provide patient care under a value-based model focused on keeping people healthy through the delivery of quality, coordinated healthcare.
After doubling in size last year, the Aledade ACO network now includes more than 200 independent, physician-led practices across 15 states that together represent more than 240,000 covered lives and $2 billion in healthcare spending. Earlier this year, the organization announced that it had raised another $20 million in funding. This new partnership, along with the funding from January, brings the company to $74.5 million total, its officials say.
Meanwhile, UnitedHealthcare serves more than 330,000 Arkansans, including 46,000 Medicare plan participants, with a network of nearly 90 hospitals and 8,000 physicians and other care providers statewide. More than 15 million people enrolled in UnitedHealthcare plans across the country have access to accountable care programs, delivered in part through more than 800 accountable care arrangements nationwide. And, UnitedHealthcare’s total payments to physicians and hospitals that are tied to value-based arrangements have tripled in the last three years to more than $54 billion. By the end of 2018, UnitedHealthcare expects that figure to reach $65 billion.
Through this accountable care relationship, Aledade and UnitedHealthcare use data, shared by the insurer to help map the many steps in a patient’s healthcare treatment, together to better coordinate patients’ health care. Using technology that enables management across a physician’s entire patient population, the two organizations can identify clear, actionable data specific to individual patients’ health needs and potential missed care opportunities—such as an annual cervical or a colorectal cancer screening, according to officials.
“Aledade is proud to form a strong partnership with UnitedHealthcare to bring high-quality, value-based care to people enrolled in its Medicare Advantage plans,” Mostashari said in a statement. “With this partnership, our Arkansas accountable care program now offers the benefits of Aledade’s model of care whether patients are covered by Medicaid, traditional Medicare or Medicare Advantage.”
Matthew Callaway, M.D., of SAMA Healthcare Services, an El Dorado-based primary care practice that partners with Aledade in an accountable care organization, added, “By partnering with high-performing clinics in Arkansas, Aledade has brought to the table an extremely sophisticated and high-tech skillset to help our physicians treat Medicare patients in ways never before possible. This new partnership will enable us to use that same technology for UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare plan participants. Together, we are making great strides in our mission to continually improve healthcare throughout Arkansas.”
