UnitedHealthcare and Quest Diagnostics have established a long-term strategic partnership as the two organizations focus on ways to create more personalized care recommendations and a simpler consumer experience for the more than 48 million people enrolled in UnitedHealthcare plans. Beginning Jan. 1, 2019, Quest will be participating as a national provider of laboratory services for all UnitedHealthcare plan participants
Under the partnership, UnitedHealthcare and Quest will use real-time data sharing to help better anticipate people’s care options – and reduce gaps in care – similar to the model UnitedHealthcare already uses to integrate medical and pharmacy data. The partnership will also include broad range of value-based programs, rewarding high-quality, easily accessible laboratory services at the best value and real-time data sharing to drive more personalized care support.
The two companies’ long-term collaboration also sets the foundation for the development of more modern benefit designs focused on incenting individuals to use high-quality, cost-effective in-network labs while setting industry-leading standards for ease of access and the patient experience. Quest, which is an in-network lab for a limited number of UnitedHealthcare plans in some markets today, has 6,000 patient access points and will be in network nationwide for all plan participants beginning Jan. 1, 2019.
“Lab data is quickly becoming the personalized roadmap that identifies the path to the next best action for individual patients,” said Dan Schumacher, President and Chief Operating Officer, UnitedHealthcare. “With the addition of Quest to our network we will now be able to work together on an even broader scale, and we appreciate that Quest has helped develop a value-based approach to lab services that will focus on improving patient outcomes, better coordinating care with physicians, and meaningfully reducing costs.”
