Managed care provider Cigna Inc., with operations in Bloomfield, says two pilot care initiatives that have closed the quality-care gap in one market while cutting patient costs in another bode well for its scheduled nationwide expansion of the programs this year.
Cigna on Thursday released preliminary results of its two collaborative accountable care pilot initiatives in New Hampshire and Arizona.
Cigna’s initiatives are its version of a patient-centered primary care collaborative formed in 2007 by dozens of U.S. primary care providers and insurers, drug makers, employers, physicians and medical groups, and consumer organizations.
Its accountable care organizations, or ACOs, have a “triple aim” to improve the quality and cost of patient care and patient satisfaction through greater access to preventative care and more effective followup treatment. Among elements Cigna says it relies on to achieve those goals is physician accountability.
“… We aim to transform the medical delivery system by rewarding physicians for results rather than volume,” Dr. Dick Salmon, Cigna’s national medical director for performance measurement and improvement said in a statement.
Cigna launched its first collaborative care pilot with New Hampshire Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in 2008. Since then, Cigna says, it has closed gaps in care 10 percent better than the market.
In Phoenix, Cigna says its pilot has lowered average annual costs per patient by $336.
Salmon said Cigna expects to have implemented or be in the active planning stage with approximately 30 initiatives by the end of the year, up from the eight Cigna-only programs in states, including Connecticut, and four multi-payer pilots in which Cigna now participates.
