Florida's largest insurer is humming along with its strategy of alternative reimbursement models, signing an accountable care agreement with one of Tenet's ACO networks.
Florida Blue has reached an agreement with Tenet's Advantage Health Network to bring in-network access to about 10,000 commercially-insured members in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties.
Tenet's Advantage network includes about 900 physicians, 36 outpatient centers and 10 acute care hospitals, including the 357-bed North Shore Medical Center in Miami, and counts about 17,000 area residents as patients.
"ACOs are changing the way physicians coordinate and deliver patient care by reducing readmissions, ER visits and unnecessary duplication of services," said Clint Hailey, Tenet's senior vice president of managed care, in a media release.
The "collaboration emphasizes both organizations' focus on enhancing the efficiency and quality of patient care," added Florida Blue's vice president of accountable care, Andy Marino.
Dallas-based Tenet now spans 77 hospitals after acquiring Vanguard last year, and has been inking a number of accountable care and value-based deals with large insurers, including Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, Blue Shield of California, Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia and Cigna.
Florida Blue, meanwhile, has been growing its ACO network after its corporate restructuring into a mutual company last year, and now has a dozen large value-based provider contracts.
Earlier this year, Florida Blue inked what was termed a "value-based compensation structure" with the country's second largest public hospital system, Memorial Healthcare, a network of six hospitals, numerous clinics and a large physicians group in greater Miami.
Counting about four million members in the state, Florida Blue is also working on electronic health record integration and data exchange with the EHR company Greenway Health, an initiative that may be needed help support all of its accountable care projects.