Centene Corporation announced today that its Illinois subsidiary, Meridian Health Plan of Illinois, Inc. (“Meridian”), and NextLevel Health Partners, Inc. (“NLHP”), a health plan serving Medicaid members in Cook County, Illinois, have entered into a Member Transfer Agreement. Under the agreement, Meridian will be assigned 100% of NLHP’s approximately 54,000 members who access benefits from the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services’ HealthChoice Illinois Program.
As part of the agreement, Meridian has executed a care coordination agreement with NLHP to ensure continuity of care for a subset of the assigned membership, effective concurrently with the closing of the transaction.
Centene provided the initial capital NLHP needed to obtain its HMO licensure at the end of 2017, enabling a minority-owned and -operated health plan to participate in the Illinois Medicaid program. Since then, Centene has continued to provide operational support to NLHP.
“We are pleased to continue to support NextLevel Health Partners by entering into a care coordination agreement, while expanding our presence in Cook County and working with our members, providers and government partners to achieve better health outcomes at lower costs for the state of Illinois,” said Michael F. Neidorff, Chairman, President and CEO of Centene. “We look forward to leveraging our scale and continuing to grow our relationships with these valued partners.”
“NextLevel Health’s local, community-based approach combines a culturally sensitive lens and the recognition of social determinants of health,” said Dr. Cheryl Whitaker, Chief Executive Office and Chairwoman of NextLevel Health Partners, Inc. “We are pleased to transition to providing care coordination to help ensure our members continue receiving quality care that improves the health of communities across Cook County.”
Meridian has been serving the Medicaid population in Illinois since 2008 and currently serves more than 750,000 HealthChoice members in Illinois.
The transaction is expected to close in July 2020, subject to regulatory approvals.
Source: PR Newswire