Delivering high-quality care requires continuous action, planning and evaluation. Monument Health always looks to new opportunities to serve our communities, even as the demographics change. One thing that we know is on the horizon is an increasing number of patients using Medicare.
To better serve our Medicare patients and to prepare for the growing age demographic, Monument Health has joined Signify Health’s Accountable Care Organization (ACO). This action will help enhance care, manage risk and improve coordination of patient care for traditional Medicare patients.
“Joining an ACO furthers our commitment to providing high-quality care, close to home for our patients,” said Kelly Stacy, M.D., Executive Medical Director. “The additional resources and access to our physicians and providers means more coordinated care and an expanded care team for our patients.”
ACOs are groups of providers that work together to coordinate care for the Medicare fee-for-service patients they serve. The goal is to ensure that traditional Medicare patients get the right care at the right time while expanding access to the patients’ care team. This includes improved access to case managers, population health nurses, physicians and providers to work together on coordinated care.
“The coordination of care for our patients, throughout Monument Health with the tools available through the ACO will help our physicians gain a better understanding of the needs of our patients,” said Dr. Stacy, M.D. “With the additional data, we will have the ability to support our patients beyond primary care and develop specific care plans for our Medicare patients.”
Signify Health will provide Monument Health with patient data that will allow our caregivers and physicians to develop a better understanding of Medicare patients’ overall health. This, in turn, will empower Monument Health to provide better guidance and assistance in every aspect of each patient’s health care.
We will begin receiving Medicare patient information from Signify Health in April, and by this summer we anticipate being able to reduce redundancy in testing and treatment, improve patient tracking across health care systems and extend patient support beyond primary care. We will also be able to code patients to the highest specificity possibility, for which we Monument Health will receive higher compensation for services provided to Medicare patients.
This comes at no additional cost to Medicare patients, and their services, rights and protections won’t change. Monument Health is the first health care organization in the region to join an ACO, and by collaborating with Signify Health, we are joining one of the largest collaborative ACOs consisting of more than 250,000 Medicare patients.