UnitedHealthcare and Mountain View, Calif.-based Palo Alto Medical Foundation announced last week they inked a deal to launch an accountable care organization for more than 63,000 beneficiaries enrolled in employer-sponsored UnitedHealthcare plans.
PAMF, a division of Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health, will shift to a value-based care model under the new arrangement. Its group of more than 500 physicians will use data from PAMF and UnitedHealthcare to manage patient care and outcomes with the support of patient navigators, who will coordinate community-based care and care transitions.
The PAMF agreement is one of 250 new ACO initiatives UnitedHealthcare committed to launch in 2015. The payer already has 520 active programs.
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