Saint Francis HealthCare Partners and UnitedHealthcare Collaborate to Improve Patient Care in Connecticut

Saint Francis HealthCare Partners (SFHCP) and UnitedHealthcare are collaborating to improve care coordination and enhance health services through a new accountable care relationship that will benefit more than 8,500 Connecticut residents enrolled in UnitedHealthcare’s employer-sponsored and Oxford health plans.

SFHCP is a partnership between Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center and a network of primary care and specialty physicians that has been recognized for its clinically integrated network focused on value and innovation in patient care. For more than 20 years, it has collaborated with physicians, hospitals and health plans to improve the health of local communities.

SFHCP and UnitedHealthcare’s partnership will expand on the successful work that began a few years ago focusing on UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage members. This collaboration continues to shift Connecticut’s health care system to one that rewards quality and value instead of the volume of procedures performed.

“We are pleased to add UnitedHealthcare to our portfolio of collaborative efforts with health plans,” said Jess Kupec, President & CEO of Saint Francis HealthCare Partners. “SFHCP has made a significant investment in population health management, and we look forward to a successful partnership with UnitedHealthcare as we continue to improve the quality and the cost-effectiveness of our delivery system.”

UnitedHealthcare will complement SFHCP’s own data by providing additional support needed to manage overall population health, including technology and information that will help SFHCP-affiliated physicians take specific actions to improve quality and lower costs. Actionable data can include patient profiles, identifying specific gaps in care, and receiving real-time information about emergency room and inpatient admissions. Patient navigators may also be used to support community-based care coordination, such as helping with transition plans after patients are discharged from the hospital, scheduling follow-up appointments and closing care gaps.

“UnitedHealthcare is working even more collaboratively with physicians so we can help enhance the health of our plan participants in meaningful ways,” said Stephen Farrell, CEO, UnitedHealthcare of New England. “Sharing accountability with care providers – and making sure they have the resources to succeed as they transition to managing population health – will ensure the health care experience remains focused on people’s individual care needs.”

The Accountable Care arrangement will further support the transition from a fee-for-service compensation model to a value-based approach in which physicians are eligible to receive payment incentives based on patient satisfaction, achieving certain evidence-based measures – such as hospital readmission rates, disease management and prevention, and patient safety – as well as total cost savings.

UnitedHealthcare’s accountable care programs touch as many as 13 million people, delivered in part through more than 750 total accountable care arrangements nationwide, as the organization engages in deeper, more collaborative relationships with physicians and hospitals.

Care providers nationwide are showing strong interest in a shift to value-based care. UnitedHealthcare’s total payments to physicians and hospitals that are tied to value-based arrangements have tripled in the last three years to $43 billion. By the end of 2018, UnitedHealthcare expects that figure to reach $65 billion.

UnitedHealthcare serves more than 500,000 Connecticut residents with a network of 43 hospitals and other care facilities and more than 14,500 physicians and other care providers statewide.

For more information about UnitedHealthcare’s full spectrum of value-based initiatives, visit www.uhc.com/valuebasedcare.

About Saint Francis HealthCare Partners
Saint Francis HealthCare Partners, Inc. is a joint venture between a community of exceptional physicians and Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center. SFHCP is a proud member of Trinity Health – New England. It is a vehicle through which the clinical and related economic interests of patients, providers and payors become aligned. Throughout its 20-year history, the organization has been noted for its clinically integrated network of over 1,000 healthcare providers.
For more information, please visit www.sfhcp.org.

About Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center
Saint Francis Hospital and Medical Center has been an anchor institution in north central Connecticut since 1897 and is now a member of Trinity Health – New England. Licensed for 617 beds and 65 bassinets, it is a major teaching hospital and the largest Catholic hospital in New England. Other Trinity Health – New England entities include Mount Sinai Rehabilitation Hospital, the Connecticut Joint Replacement Institute, the Hoffman Heart and Vascular Institute of Connecticut, Smilow Cancer Hospital Yale-New Haven at Saint Francis, the Joyce D. and Andrew J. Mandell Center for Comprehensive Multiple Sclerosis Care and Neuroscience Research, Saint Francis HealthCare Partners and Sisters of Providence Health System, Springfield, Mass, along with Johnson Memorial Hospital, and Home and Community Health Services.
For more information, visit www.stfranciscare.com.

About UnitedHealthcare
UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the healthcare 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, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 850,000 physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com or follow @myUHC on Twitter.

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