Humana and Iora Health Further Accountable Care Partnership in Arizona and Washington, Expand Into Colorado

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- After successfully launching an Accountable Care arrangement and population health management partnership last fall, Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) and Iora Health will further solidify the partnership by opening seven new primary care practices in four markets across Arizona, Colorado and Washington.

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The primary care practices are designed exclusively for Humana's Medicare Advantage members and will provide members access to affordable, quality care. Opening under the Iora Primary Care brand, the seven new primary care practices will include one in Phoenix, two in Tucson, one in Seattle and three in Denver. The practices will start seeing Humana Medicare Advantage members as early as August 1, 2015.

Last year, Iora Health, in partnership with Humana, opened two primary care practices in Phoenix and two in Seattle. The success of these practices was recently highlighted in a video on the value of accountable care: www.humana.com/accountable-care.

The new Arizona primary care practices are located at 3202 E. Greenway Road in Phoenix and 3902 E. Grant Road and 8616 E. Broadway Blvd. in Tucson. The new Seattle-area practice is located at 64 Rainier Ave. South in Renton, Wash. The new Colorado practices are located at 8175 Sheridan Blvd. in Arvada, Colo.; 1692 Wadsworth Blvd. in Lakewood, Colo.; and 4100 E. Mississippi Ave. in Denver.

Building on Iora's proven success, these practices will have integrated care teams that include doctors, nurses, health coaches, medication management, behavioral health and social services resources. Iora builds practices to meet the specific needs of the communities it serves, including hiring teams who speak their patients' languages and who understand the local challenges patients face.

"At Iora Health, our mission is to restore humanity to health care. We do this by changing everything, delivering a care experience for older adults that starts with spending the time necessary to listen," said Rushika Fernandopulle, M.D., M.P.P., CEO and Co-Founder of Iora Health. "Partnering with a progressive company like Humana has enabled us to deliver the Iora care model across two markets and we're looking forward to improving the lives of even more patients across Arizona, Colorado and Washington this year."

Iora Health serves over 10,000 patients in twelve primary care practices across seven states. Iora has expanded the definition of primary care to include integrated health and wellness, offering behavioral health and groups like Diabetes Club and yoga, based on their patients' needs. Results have shown improved patient engagement, experience and clinical outcomes. Additionally, Iora's proprietary collaborative care technology enables Iora to treat and manage its full patient population and allows for patients to view and contribute to their medical record.

"As we venture into our bold goal - to improve the health of the communities we serve 20% by 2020 by making it easy for people to achieve their best health - it's partnerships like the one with Iora Health that will help Humana be successful," said Mark El-Tawil, West Division Leader for Humana's Senior Products. "Iora's unique care model is already making a difference for our members in Phoenix and Seattle, so we are excited that the expansion of this partnership will provide innovative patient-centered care for our Humana Medicare Advantage members in Tucson and Denver, improving their well-being."

The Humana-Iora Health partnership includes value-based incentives tied to performance improvement and supports successful population health management and a world-class patient experience for Humana members and Iora patients. The arrangement offers more personalized care and a broad range of population health tools like Humana's predictive analytics, chronic care, disease management and wellness programs.

Through its programs, Humana can provide actionable patient data, providing physicians with a total patient population health picture. The value-based incentive arrangement emphasizes quality outcomes and leverages standard measures defined by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS), including breast cancer screening, colorectal screening, comprehensive diabetes care, A1c control and high-risk medications.

Today, Humana has approximately 1.5 million individual Medicare Advantage and 230,000 commercial members, cared for by approximately 45,500 primary care physicians in more than 900 accountable care relationships across 43 states and Puerto Rico. For more information, visit humana.com/accountable-care. About Iora Health Iora Health is restoring humanity to healthcare by providing a radically different model of primary care built from the ground up. Iora Health's care model provides extraordinary service to patients to ensure improved health outcomes while also lowering overall plan costs. Our patients enjoy the benefits of better access to care, office and non-office based encounters (e.g. phone, text messages, and email), an accessible and transparent medical record, and robust educational offerings. Our practices, across the U.S., enjoy the benefits of smaller sizes, closer relationships with patients, and the opportunity to lead systemic change in healthcare delivery while working with a true team. For more information, please visit www.iorahealth.com. About Humana Humana Inc., headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, is a leading health and well-being company focused on making it easy for people to achieve their best health with clinical excellence through coordinated care. The company's strategy integrates care delivery, the member experience, and clinical and consumer insights to encourage engagement, behavior change, proactive clinical outreach and wellness for the millions of people we serve across the country.

Keywords for this news article include: Medicare, Wellness, Humana Inc., Health Policy, Medical Records, Records as Topic, Insurance Companies.

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