Cigna Collaborative Care, a value-based initiative similar to an accountable care organization, has shown successful quality outcomes and reduced costs in OB/GYN practices in Florida and Texas.
The initiative, originally implemented with large primary care physician groups, has been piloted with six OB/GYN groups, and two have been evaluated. One of the groups, Women's Care Florida, which operates in Tampa and Orlando, reduced its primary cesarean delivery rate by 15.2 percent and increased its generic drug dispensing rate by 6.4 percent in the first year of the program. The other group, Houston-based Southwest Women's Health Alliance, has improved total medical cost performance by 3 percent, improved its generic drug dispensing rate by 7.6 percent and reached patient satisfaction rates of 93 percent in its first year.
"The Cigna Collaborative Care model demonstrated our ability to help large primary care physician groups improve the quality and cost of care," John Keats, MD, a Cigna senior medical director and OB/GYN specialist, said in a statement. "These two medical practices are pioneers that are helping us adapt that model to OB/GYN specialty care. We're very pleased with their early successes and look forward to further collaboration that will help this model evolve."
Cigna plans to launch up to six additional OB/GYN collaborative care pilots this year. When the programs have been in place for one year, the payer will evaluate performance and determine if the model is feasible as a standard value-based reimbursement model for specialty care.
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