Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and Allina Health have agreed to a six-year value-based care arrangement that will reach a large portion of patients in the state.
Allina Health administers 6 million patient visits per year and one-third of Minnesotans are covered by Blue Cross, the two partners said in an announcement. The new model aims to decrease spending at Allina Health facilities by Blue Cross members by 10% over the next five years.
The payments tied to outcomes performance are between five and ten times higher than many value-based arrangements, Blue Cross said.
Dana Erickson, senior vice president and president of health services at Blue Cross MN, told Fierce Healthcare that the two reached the agreement after a year of back-and-forth to align goals and determine the path forward.
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Ric Magnuson, chief financial officer at Allina Health, told Fierce that part of the process was realizing that though they were coming together from different perspectives, they were working toward the same end.
“Through our conversations and through really building trust, which was really needed, and then sharing our vision, we realized we were much closer aligned in what we were trying to do,” he said. “And so, if we could get on the same page and figure out how to do it, it would become a win-win-win.”
Allina providers will also earn rewards for additional preventive and coordinated care, with the goal of freeing up doctors to build their relationships with patients and simplify the administrative work needed to manage care.
Both organizations believe that a greater focus on preventive care can be a critical step in getting at health disparities, which have been exacerbated by COVID-19.
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Blue Cross executives say that the pandemic is making an even stronger case for arrangements like this. In teaming up with the insurer to move away from payments based on volume, Allina can protect itself from losses should volumes plummet as they have under COVID-19.
The pandemic has also highlighted the need to meet patients where they are, the organizations said, so expanded use of telehealth will be a priority under the arrangement.
“COVID-19 has hastened the need for change, and our value-based partnership with Allina Health is already proving to be a positive example of what’s possible when healthcare plan and healthcare providers work collaboratively on shared challenges to improve the physical, mental and financial health of our patients and members,” Blue Cross CEO Craig Samitt, M.D., said in a statement.