ProHEALTH and UnitedHealthcare Improving Patient Care in New York Metro Area through New Collaboration
NEW YORK--ProHEALTH Care Associates, LLP, and UnitedHealthcare are collaborating to improve care coordination and provide enhanced health services to more than 35,000 local residents enrolled in UnitedHealthcare’s employer-sponsored health plans, including Oxford Health-branded plans.
UnitedHealthcare will provide ProHEALTH physicians with real-time data to help care providers monitor all aspects of care that patients are receiving and to enhance the practice’s patient-management capabilities.The two organizations are working together to help continue shifting New York’s health care system to one that rewards quality and value over volume of procedures performed. More than 600 providers practicing across ProHEALTH’s 180 locations on Long Island and in New York City’s five boroughs will manage all aspects of patients’ care, ensuring a complete picture of their overall health and treatments received. ProHEALTH currently operates 14 urgent care centers, and the number is expected to grow to 20 this year to further support the effort.
“This partnership further enhances our long-standing relationship with UnitedHealthcare and enables us to serve our community’s unique health care needs,” said Gary Weissman, M.D., chief medical officer of ProHEALTH Medical Management, LLC. “By working with UnitedHealthcare, we can continue to increase patient engagement to achieve better health outcomes and improve patient satisfaction, while reducing the overall cost of care.”
ProHEALTH’s care providers will be eligible to receive payment incentives for meeting certain evidence-based measures, such as hospital readmission rates, disease management and prevention, patient safety and care delivery, and total cost savings and patient satisfaction.
This new collaboration will help ProHEALTH continue to enhance quality gains that have resulted in more than $10 million in savings bonuses between June 2012 and December 2013 from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and other health insurers by reducing practice variation, decreasing duplications in care and promoting the proper setting for care.
UnitedHealthcare employer-sponsored plan participants who currently receive care from ProHEALTH-affiliated care providers will not have to do anything differently to receive the benefits of this new collaboration.
“By creating partnerships with high-performing care providers like ProHEALTH, we can work together to lead the transition to a value-based health care system that pays care providers for quality and patient outcomes rather than the number of procedures they perform,” said Michael McGuire, CEO of UnitedHealthcare of New York and New Jersey. “These collaborative relationships give care providers the support needed to manage overall population health, which makes it easier for patients to seek the most appropriate care.”
Care providers nationwide are showing strong interest in a shift to value-based care. UnitedHealthcare’s physician and hospital reimbursements that are tied to a variety of different value-based programs have nearly tripled in the last three years to $36 billion annually. The company projects this reimbursement will reach $65 billion by 2018. For more information about UnitedHealthcare’s accountable care program initiatives, visitwww.AccountableCareAnswers.com.
UnitedHealthcare serves more than 3.8 million people in New York with a care provider network of 235 hospitals and more than 64,000 physicians statewide.
About ProHEALTH Care Associates LLP
ProHEALTH is one of the largest integrated physician group practices in the New York metropolitan area with more than 200 locations throughout Long Island and the New York boroughs. ProHEALTH features more than 500 highly skilled physicians with outstanding credentials from nearly every medical specialty working together to care for thousands of patients each month. Many of our physicians are recognized for innovative medical achievements including writing award winning medical journals and conducting research studies. Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners, Registered Nurses and Physical Therapists are just some of the staff members at ProHEALTH who support our physicians.
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, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 800,000 physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. Globally, UnitedHealthcare serves 45 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. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare atwww.uhc.com or follow @myUHC on Twitter.