BCBSKS Partnership Helps Lower Costs and Improve Quality of Care
Today, Aledade announced that its Kansas physician-led Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), in collaboration with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas (BCBSKS), helped 25 primary care practices across the state lower costs by improving the quality of care thousands of Kansans received in 2019.
Results from the Kansas ACOs show that in the last year the 25 primary care practices that participated:
● Completed more than 53,000 primary care visits, for a yearly visit rate of over 90 percent
● Completed three or more primary care visits for 92 percent of members with a chronic condition
● Decreased inpatient admissions by over 13%, from 67.1 per 1,000 patients to 58.0
● Ranked above the 70th percentile among provider groups nation-wide for post-discharge follow up, completing more than 1,000 transitions of care visits
● Improved breast cancer screening rate by 2 percent, completing more than 1,000 mammograms
“Creating value is as important as ever as the nation continues to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Erin Patrick, Market President of Aledade’s Kansas operations. “These results demonstrate the positive change that physician-led ACOs can have in improving outcomes and generating savings.”
The Kansas ACOs’ incentive-based earnings have provided critical revenue to primary care physicians on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. ACOs are groups of providers that share financial responsibility for delivering high-quality, better-coordinated patient care.
“The collaboration with Aledade has been critical to improving quality and creating value,” said Angie Strecker, BCBSKS Vice President of Provider Relations. “These results clearly show the impact that ACOs can have on their member practices, as well as patients and the health care system at large.”
Shifting to value-based payments is one of several factors central to Blue Cross KS’ recent progress on lowering health care costs, including lower Affordable Care Act and Medicare Advantage premiums for 2020. In addition to lowering the total costs of care, the practices participating in the Kansas ACOs achieved significant improvements in the quality of care and health outcomes, as outlined above.
“Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas continues to be a leader in the shift to value-based care models,” said Mat Kendall, President of Aledade. “I am grateful for their collaboration in this journey and am so excited to show how this innovative model improves care for patients and generates savings for the physicians that are so crucial for providing great care to Kansas communities.”
Aledade’s work with BCBSKS enables doctors, providers and BCBSKS to work as a team to improve the quality of care for patients, better manage chronic diseases, and ultimately reduce health care costs. With necessary claims data and support from BCBSKS, Aledade provides participating physicians with a full range of capabilities that include cutting-edge data analytics, user-friendly care management and patient outreach tools, regulatory expertise, and hands-on support from local experts in practice transformation. Recent results show that Aledade ACOs, over the past five years, have provided better care to nearly a million patients across the country, thereby saving the health care system more than $400 million in unnecessary costs.
