Massachusetts-based AllWays Health Partners is getting its second name change in recent years to highlight its integration with Mass General Brigham and a continued focus on value-based care.
Announced Wednesday, the branding change to Mass General Brigham Health Plan will take effect Jan. 1, 2023.
“As Mass General Brigham Health Plan, we will be better positioned to break down traditional barriers to coordinated care and coverage through a value-based model that puts the member at the center,” Steven Tringale, president of AllWays Health Partners, said in a statement. “Our model is supported and differentiated by the clinical excellence of one of the world’s leading healthcare systems.”
The health plan was founded in 1986 as Neighborhood Health Plan with an initial focus on Medicaid coverage for low-income Massachusetts residents. It joined up with the large nonprofit health system in 2012 and rebranded to AllWays Health Partners in 2019 alongside an increasing focus on commercial coverage.
AllWays has already collaborated with its parent system on several products and programs, such as a remote medical management initiative run by Brigham and Women’s Hospital, called iHeart Champion, and a program connecting families caring for someone with Down syndrome to Massachusetts General Hospital and Mass General for physicians and guidance, called Down Syndrome Clinic to You.
The plan’s announcement also highlighted a hybrid in-person/remote mental health care offering supported by virtual behavioral health platform Lyra Health that’s currently available to some MGB employees, with plans to expand to other AllWays members.
More integrated programs that lean on MGB’s clinical expertise are at the heart of the rebrand and MGB’s long-term strategy, according to the announcement.
The plan and system also said their tighter relationship and push to value-based care will open the door to better understanding the social issues contributing to healthcare disparities among certain patient populations.
“Through our collaboration as an integrated healthcare system, we are deploying innovative population health management approaches that seamlessly integrate the full spectrum of care to meet our members’ needs,” Lindsay Jubelt, M.D., chief population health officer at MGB and chief medical officer at AllWays Health Partners, said in a statement. “We look forward to bringing more truly unique provider-payer collaborations to the marketplace.”
The state’s largest health system is relatively fresh from its own rebranding from Partners HealthCare, which it first announced in late 2019.
The nonprofit saw $16 billion in total operating revenue and nearly $3.2 billion in net income during 2021. It also recently drew the ire of Massachusetts health policy regulators for its heavy spending and a controversial expansion plan.