U.S. health insurer
Aetna Inc.
(
AET
) has agreed to form an Accountable Care Organization (ACO) with
ProHealth Physicians, Inc. This is in sync with Aetna's efforts
to improve the safety and quality of patient care and make health
care more affordable.
An ACO is a collaboration of health care providers who
voluntarily form alliances to provide coordinated high quality
care to patients. An ACO is accountable for the quality, cost,
and overall care offered to members. By focusing on the needs of
patients and linking payments to outcomes, the model intends to
improve the health of individuals and communities and curb rising
health care costs.
The newly formed ACO will serve Aetna's members who are
enrolled in Medicare plans. Aetna will provide the service via
its health technology unit named Healthagen. The unit will
provide collaborative care management and high end analytics
service to serve and manage chronic health issues of the
patients.
The ACO will try to stem the rise of chronic disease among
patients by providing them with a care team consisting of care
management technology, care managers, and clinical staff. This
team will help to prevent manageable health issues thus lowering
the chance of any chronic, ongoing disease.
ProHealth is aiming to provide its patients with quality care
within reasonable costs. To achieve this objective ProHealth will
apply Healthagen's payer-neutral population management and
integrated solutions among its patient population.
ACOs or collaborative accountable care is one of the several
ways by which President Obama wants to improve the quality of
health of all Americans. It is viewed as a tool that would
deliver seamless, high quality care for the overall
population.
The Health Care Reform called for such an arrangement in order
to trim unnecessary expenses associated with the absence of
coordination between multiple physicians and other providers.
Most Americans with multiple chronic conditions receive care from
multiple physicians, and it has been observed that few patients
were not taken care of to the fullest extent possible by some
physicians. A large percentage of the sick population ended up
being victims of medical errors and faced hospital readmissions
within days of their discharge. Thus, ACOs were formed to reduce
the exorbitant fees which are incurred due to lack of managed
care.
Other health insurers like
UnitedHealth Group Inc.
(
UNH
) and
CIGNA Corp.
(
CI
) are also aggressively forming ACOs. Going forward, we expect
such patient-centered collaborations to rapidly grow in
numbers.
Aetna currently retains a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Under our
coverage,
Coventry Health Care Inc.
(
CVH
), among other health care providers, carries Zacks Rank #2 (Buy)
and is worth noting.
AETNA INC-NEW (AET): Free Stock Analysis
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CIGNA CORP (CI): Free Stock Analysis Report
COVENTRY HLTHCR (CVH): Free Stock Analysis
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UNITEDHEALTH GP (UNH): Free Stock Analysis
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