Dignity Health, the not-for-profit hospital operator, has entered into an unusual deal with a subsidiary of insurance giant UnitedHealth to create a revenue cycle management firm.
Dignity Health is teaming with OptumInsight to form Optum360, according to InformationWeek. The company will have more than 3,000 employees from the two firms combined. Dignity will be a minority owner in the venture, the San Francisco Business Times reported.
"We're trying to bring the experience of one of the largest health systems together with a company that does an amazing job with technology to bring our intellectual properties together," Michael Blaszyk, Dignity Health's chief financial officer, told InformationWeek.
Optum360's first customer will be Dignity itself. The Catholic-oriented hospital system is paying the new venture $250 million a year for its services and expects to achieve considerable financial savings as a result. Dignity has been experiencing drops in patient volume and net income in recent years.
The new venture will focus primarily on designing plans to help providers and accountable care organizations accept and properly manage bundled payments. It will also assist patients in properly sorting out their hospital bills and "make their financial arrangements as problem-free as possible," according to Blaszyk. He told the San Francisco Business Times that the venture will help smooth out the millions of encounters the newly insured Americans will experience with the healthcare financial system.
Dignity also recently worked out another deal with UnitedHealth, Advocate Health Care and Baylor Health Care to increase the available information about medical devices, according to InformationWeek.
To learn more:
- read the InformationWeek article
- here's the San Francisco Business Times article
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