Trinity Health and Heritage Provider Network announced a joint venture on Jan. 12 to build care networks to provide population health management in specific markets.
They said these networks will expand their capabilities to contract with payers for capitated payments for patient care. Under such contracts, providers assume financial risk, and do so because they believe they can improve patient care while lowering costs.
Gilfillan
Merkin
Leadership of the two organizations said they are co-owners in the venture, called Trinity Health Partners, but they did not disclose the percentage of each ownership stake or financial terms of the agreement. Livonia, Mich.-based Trinity Health is one of the nation's largest Catholic nonprofit health care systems with 86 hospitals and 128 continuing care facilities in 21 states. Marina del Rey, Calif.-based Heritage Provider Network is a for-profit company that holds a Knox-Keene license, which allows it to take institutional risk. Heritage Provider Network does not sell health insurance plans to consumers.
Heritage Provider Network includes 12 owned independent practice associations with more than 4,000 primary care physicians and 30,000 specialists; 52 staff model medical group sites; and hospice, home health and surgery center companies. According to a news release, it is committed to the accountable care model of health care delivery: "coordinated, patient-doctor centric, integrated health care systems that represent the future of health care in the United States." In addition to California, Heritage Provider Network and its affiliates operate in New York and Arizona and provide health care to more than a million people.
The organizations have not yet said where they'll launch the new networks, which they say will use new models for primary care, care management, hospitalist, post-acute care and also clinics that treat patients with complex illnesses to improve and coordinate care. The partner organizations plan to build care networks to improve the health of individuals, better coordinate care and lower costs, said the chief executives and presidents of both organizations.
Dr. Richard Gilfillan, president and chief executive of Trinity Health, said the new models of care will draw from Heritage Provider Network's 35 years of experience in creating networks of physicians, in coordinating care and in managing payments to doctors and the hospitals associated with them. Its care of patients involves resources including care managers who coordinate patient care across settings and information technology infrastructures and data analysis capabilities that can assist physicians and other providers to improve care.
Dr. Richard Merkin, president and chief executive of Heritage Provider Network, said his company uses web-based platforms that allow doctors and other care providers to quickly see when patients have gaps in their health screenings or care.
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