WESTMED Medical Group announced that its accountable care organization
(ACO) program with UnitedHealthcare and Optum improved on nine of 10
health quality metrics, increased patient satisfaction and reduced
health care costs.
Since establishing the ACO in mid-2012, WESTMED, a large multispecialty
group medical practice in Westchester County, has seen significant
improvements in patients taking their prescription medications properly;
and for diabetics, more routine screening and better control of blood
sugar levels.
The ACO is performing above the 90th percentile of National
Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Quality Compass for providing the
highest level of coordinated care for breast cancer and cervical cancer
screenings. Its patient-centered medical home program already had
received the highest level of recognition (Level 3) from NCQA for
providing coordinated, efficient and quality primary care. NCQA is a
nonprofit organization dedicated to improving health care quality.
“We are committed to providing best-in-class care to our patients, so
when we joined together with UnitedHealthcare and Optum, we were
optimistic that with greater physician commitment, enhanced technologies
and data, and cooperation from our patients that we would improve care,
while reducing costs,” said Simeon Schwartz, M.D., president and CEO of
WESTMED.
“Our initial results exceeded our expectations. We will continue to look
for ways to collaborate and share accountability for patient care to
surpass these already strong results,” said Barney Newman, M.D., medical
director of WESTMED.
WESTMED received a nearly $1 million bonus under its ACO agreement with
UnitedHealthcare by reducing practice variation, decreasing duplications
in care and promoting the proper setting for care. Participating
physicians who met both care quality and cost metrics focusing on
providing the right level of care for patients may be eligible for
bonuses. The medical group also will reinvest funds into ongoing
technology enhancements to continue to improve quality of care, increase
patient satisfaction and reduce health care costs.
“WESTMED physicians successfully achieved what they set out to do –
reaching their quality objectives while reducing overall costs in their
first year as an ACO,” said Chris Pricco, senior vice president of
Accountable Care Solutions at Optum. “We look forward to continuing our
work with WESTMED and other clients as we expand our portfolio of
capabilities, which focus on enabling care providers to transition from
today’s fee-for-service environment to one in which care providers are
truly managing the health of their patients.”
WESTMED physicians have benefited from detailed health intelligence that
Optum’s analytical tools provide – ranging from information about
individual patient health to comparative data across entire populations.
Regularly updated reports enable physicians to collaborate across
specialties, helping them make informed medical care decisions based on
a complete picture of each patient’s situation.
“Our initial results with WESTMED are a clear indication of the positive
results that can be achieved when medical professionals and insurers
come together for a common goal – getting patients to the right care at
the right time in the right setting for the best outcomes,” said Sam Ho,
M.D., chief medical officer of UnitedHealthcare. “We look forward to the
next phase in our ACO collaboration as we strive to help patients
achieve better health.”
More than 13,000 UnitedHealthcare plan participants who reside in
Westchester County and are covered under an Oxford Health fully insured
commercial plan were part of the initial ACO collaboration. WESTMED and
UnitedHealthcare will expand the ACO program to measure a greater number
of metrics and increase the number of plan participants in this program,
including Westchester County-based UnitedHealthcare fully insured plan
participants in the coming year, while continuing to improve health care
quality and satisfaction for people in the initial group.
UnitedHealthcare is working with physician groups, hospitals and medical
centers, and other health care delivery organizations across the country
to achieve Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s “Triple Aim” objective
– improving population health and patient experience, delivering the
best possible quality outcomes and reducing the overall cost of care.
UnitedHealthcare’s value-based payment capabilities are designed to
support this transformation of care delivery.
Today, more than $25 billion of UnitedHealthcare’s annual physician and
hospital reimbursements is tied to accountable care programs, centers of
excellence and performance-based programs. The company projects that
will reach $50 billion by 2017.
About WESTMED Medical Group
WESTMED
Medical Group is a large multi-specialty group medical practice, with
headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. It is staffed by a team of more than 260
physicians dedicated to providing coordinated, efficient, quality
patient care at its nine locations in central and lower Westchester
County. The practice uses state-of-the-art systems and electronic
medical records to enhance the health of the community. WESTMED has
medical offices in White Plains, Rye, Ridge Hill in Yonkers, Purchase,
Scarsdale and New Rochelle. Connect with WESTMED online at www.westmedgroup.com
and Facebook
and Twitter.
About Optum
Optum (www.optum.com)
is a leading information and technology-enabled health services business
dedicated to helping make the health system work better for everyone.
Optum comprises more than 40,000 people worldwide who collaborate to
deliver integrated, intelligent solutions that work to modernize the
health system and improve overall population health.
About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare
is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by
simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and
wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care
providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit
programs for individuals, employers and Medicare and Medicaid
beneficiaries, and contracts directly with 780,000 physicians and other
health care professionals and 5,900 hospitals and other care facilities
nationwide. UnitedHealthcare serves more than 40 million people in
health benefits and is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group
(NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.
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Copyright Business Wire 2013