McKesson Health Solutions acquires IT technology vendor

To expand its information technology portfolio, Newton, Massachusetts-based McKesson Health Solutions has acquired IT vendor HealthQX.

HealthQX, based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, owns ClarityQx, a value-based payment technology. With the addition of HealthQX's portfolio, McKesson will be able to better serve customers and help them with their transition to value-based care through automating and scaling complex models like retrospective and prospective bundled payments, McKesson said in a statement.

McKesson plans to combine ClarityQx with its own existing Episode Management system. Together the software will give users the ability to automate retrospective bundled payment processes immediately or move to prospective payments at a later date when they’re ready to transition.

In June, McKesson published a study that found value-based reimbursement has been established as a necessary and normal part of the health care payment system, but found that payers and providers are struggling to understand how they work exactly.

The acquisition of HealthQX, which closed in June, should help fill that gap.

“The growth of bundled payment is something payers and providers can’t ignore, and we want to ensure our customers have all the tools they need to succeed,” said Carolyn Wukitch, senior vice president of McKesson Health Solutions, in a statement. “These new value-based payment analytics, reconciliation, and automation capabilities complement our value-based reimbursement suite, because they give our customers the capabilities to prepare for and scale bundled payment.”