Nearly 1,600 Kansas City, Mo. area physicians across the University of Kansas Health System, North Kansas City Hospital, Merriam-based Shawnee Mission Health and Kansas City Metropolitan Physician Association banded together to form a clinical integration network called Centrus Health Kansas City, according to The Kansas City Star.
The group has an agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City and is in talks with Medicare to form an ACO. If the ACO is approved, 90,000 Medicare and Blue Cross members will be in the network.
"It's a really unique opportunity for this sort of delivery model to come to Kansas City," said Jill Watson, executive director of Centrus Health, according to The Kansas City Star. "We know the city is asking for it and we're pretty excited about the partners we put together and the direction of the physician leadership that's involved."
Centrus Health physicians have agreed to share patient data to identify which physician groups excel at certain medical specialties. This will help them share methods and improve quality of care across the network.