McKesson Business Performance Services and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona (BCBSAZ) have launched a new company, ACO Partner, a Maximum Services Organization, an innovative collaborative that will leverage McKesson’s physician engagement, care management, and population health services and technology. ACO Partner plans to contract with payers and provider groups nationwide to increase the overall quality of care through strong partnerships in pursuit of the triple aim of lowering costs, improving outcomes and enhancing overall patient experience.
The goal of ACO Partner is to unify patients, providers and payers across the care continuum. Provider organizations will have access to a full spectrum of value-based services, including strategic management, analytics, physician engagement, network development, care coordination, care navigation and patient engagement. Participating providers will also have access to shared savings opportunities with partnering payers that will provide incentives for greater efficiencies and improvements in the quality of care.
The first payer to contract with ACO Partner is BCBSAZ, which has over 1.5 million covered lives in Arizona. BCBSAZ is also a primary investor in ACO Partner through their subsidiary, Trinnovate Ventures. McKesson and BCBSAZ have invested in the development of an infrastructure that will support strategic collaboration between payers and providers while enabling ongoing patient engagement.
“ACO Partner will help benefit all healthcare stakeholders along the healthcare continuum,” Wallace said. “For physicians and health systems, McKesson’s services will help ease their burden as they become active participants in value-based care. For payers, ACO Partner will help support improved outcomes and cost efficiencies by educating patients about high-quality, lower cost care, and by improving coordination and collaboration between providers. Finally, for patients, the new entity is intended to strengthen outcomes while helping reduce out-of-pocket expenses.”
Pat Leonard, president of McKesson Business Performance Services, said ACO Partner will harness resources from across McKesson Corporation to provide comprehensive services and technology infrastructure designed to enable physicians and health systems to deliver value-based care to their BCBSAZ patient population. McKesson will provide analytics to support payers as they collaborate with provider networks to improve care quality, reduce unnecessary medical spend, manage population risk and support population health management.
