Two of the region’s largest health systems – St. Elizabeth Healthcare and TriHealth – are launching a joint venture they say will improve health care and lower costs for employers and hundreds of thousands of patients in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana.
On Thursday, the two groups said they have signed a letter of intent to form Healthcare Solutions Network, a first-in-the-region health organization that will be led by St. Elizabeth CEO John Dubis and TriHealth CEO John Prout.
The new venture will bring together the two health systems’ expansive network of hospitals and physicians, allowing them to better coordinate health care and share information for hundreds of thousands of patients across the region, officials said.
The deal is not a merger. Both health systems will remain separate organizations and continue to operate their own facilities. Financial terms were not disclosed.
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But the deal gives St. Elizabeth and TriHealth bargaining power that other health systems in the region won’t have.
Healthcare Solutions Network will essentially serve as the negotiating muscle for the two health systems – marketing their collective, multi-state network of 10 hospitals, more than 850 physicians and more than 200 primary care and specialty offices. It’s that combined health care network that the new venture will tout and sell as it works to strike exclusive deals with employers, insurers and payers, such as Medicaid and Medicare, to serve and manage their patients’ health care costs.
“As health care changes, we can be more creative and innovative together, than we can separately,” said Prout. “This is about focusing on health outcomes together. That’s what patients want. That’s what employers and people who are paying the bills want and that’s what we want.”
The new firm – which is expected to be a nonprofit like its founders – will look to partner with small and large employers. It will offer discounts for health care services if they choose send send their employees exclusively to the combined St. Elizabeth/TriHealth network of physicians and hospitals. Eventually, Healthcare Solutions Network will also offer insurance plans for their narrower network for individuals shopping for coverage off and one the newly launched health insurance marketplaces –Healthcare.gov (in Ohio and Indiana) and Kynect.ky.gov in Kentucky.
Date: Dec. 5, 2013