Evernorth, CarepathRx form partnership on specialty care
The move is an effort to expand and accelerate pharmacy care delivery for patients with chronic and complex care needs.
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Evernorth Health Services, a subsidiary of Cigna, has announced a new strategic partnership with CarepathRx Health System Solutions (CHSS) with the goal of combining Evernorth's specialty and care expertise with CHSS' pharmacy and infusion-management capabilities and tech solutions.
The move is an effort to expand and accelerate pharmacy care delivery for patients with chronic and complex care needs.
The partnership will deliver integrated specialty pharmacy care to CHSS' base of about 600 hospitals, health systems and physicians – ostensibly helping to diversify their services. This includes enhanced coordinated infusion services, virtual care capabilities, value-based care arrangements and site-of-care flexibility.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
Evernorth said its suite of services, including Accredo's specialty care and pharmacy expertise and CuraScript SD's specialty medication distribution across 12,000 physicians, is complementary to CHSS' capabilities that help health systems expand in-house specialty pharmacies, infusion and polypharmacy services.
Over time, the companies said, their expertise will enable simpler, faster connections to care for patients managing chronic and complex specialty conditions. As many of these patients need specialty or acute drug therapies, the partnership will focus on continuity of care for specialty drugs, management of infusion services across sites of care – from ambulatory to physician office to home settings – and value-based site-of-care strategies.
The intent is to drive optimal patient treatment plans and deepen physician engagement, resulting in better patient experiences, more care extensions and greater affordability.
Evernorth's minority investment in CHSS is expected to close in late Q2 or early Q3 of this year. After the close, the CHSS management team will continue to lead the business and will retain majority ownership.
THE LARGER TREND
Total revenue at Evernorth hit $36.2 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 8% year-over-year, with Cigna attributing that growth to its specialty pharmacy and its care delivery and management tools.
Evernorth includes pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, specialty pharmacy Accredo and eviCore healthcare, which provides utilization-management services for health plans or employer groups and outpatient diagnostic imaging service programs.
Cigna Group, Cigna Healthcare and Evernorth Health Services are now three distinct brands within the company, part of a rebranding initiative announced in February.
ON THE RECORD
"Forging deeper relationships with physicians and other specialty and infusion pharmacies – a critical point of care for people with chronic and complex needs – is a key priority as we work to increase access to care and improve affordability," said Eric Palmer, president and CEO of Evernorth. "Specialty care continues to be a focal point for hospital, health system and physician partners, and our collaboration with CHSS is an important step in delivering on our commitment to bring them even more patient care services to improve overall outcomes."
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: Jeff.Lagasse@himssmedia.com
