Maryland hospitals form network to leverage state reimbursement
Move comes as state ties payment to the size of patient populations covered by health networks.
Peninsula Regional Medical Center (handout)
Five health systems in Maryland in Monday announced plans to form an ownership organization that governs their 10 combined hospitals. Just don’t call the deal a merger.
As Maryland recently announced plans to tie reimbursement rates to the size of populations covered by health networks, the five systems have found a crafty way to benefit without officially becoming a single provider.
The Advanced Health Collaborative will include Adventist HealthCare, LifeBridge Health, Mercy Health Services, Peninsula Regional Health System and the Trivergent Health Alliance and will create cost sharing and patient care programs across the network, essentially a population health model.
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“By joining together in the Advanced Health Collaborative, we plan to harness the collective strengths of our members, putting them in a stronger position to advance common interests and goals, including providing higher quality care with greater cost efficiency,” said Robb Cohen, who will serve as the group’s chief executive.
Maryland’s “all-payer” model took effect in January 2014, and is intended hasten the move from fee-for-service to value-based payment since health systems receive a preset reimbursement based on patient population size.
According to Cohen, the collaborative also will participate in policy discussions about healthcare at the state and federal level.
“We believe that by sharing ideas and working together, AHC members will be more successful in transitioning to this new model of care and achieve faster and better results,” Cohen said.
Monetary terms of the deal were not announced.
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