Health Care Service Corporation is teaming with Collective Health to bring the tech company's platform to its members.
Collective Health's solution, which offers employers the ability to manage benefits, costs and members' health in one platform, will initially be made available to self-funded employers in Illinois and Texas beginning Jan. 1, 2022. The plan is to scale up over the next several years.
Kevin Cassidy, chief growth officer at HCSC, told Fierce Healthcare the partnership will offer participating employers greater flexibility in how they structure their benefits and will engage members more directly in their own healthcare.
"I see this as much more than an incremental change," he said. "This is a very big step toward a much more broad offering of benefits."
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Members will have access to Collective Health's platform via a mobile app, while there is a web-based interface for employers to track benefits and how they're impacting employees.
As part of the partnership, HCSC will also invest in Collective Health, pending regulatory approvals, according to the announcement.
James Parr, senior vice president of sales at Collective Health, told Fierce Healthcare the two companies are "well-matched partners" that share a vision for a more digitally connected healthcare system.
"I think we have really similar DNA," he said. "We really feel like this partnership is going to accelerate that digital health care revolution."
Cassidy said that while both partners see significant opportunity to scale up their work in the future, they're planning for now to take it slow and be intentional about when and where to expand the partnership.
However, the platform is "tremendously scalable," he said, and they see a two- to a seven-year window in which Collective Health's tools could reach all of HCSC's members.
"Our No. 1 focus is a seamless implementation and a seamless experience," he said.