title: A collaborative accountable care model in three practices showed promising early results on costs and quality of care.
abstract: Cigna's Collaborative Accountable Care initiative provides financial incentives to physician groups and integrated delivery systems to improve the quality and efficiency of care for patients in commercial open-access benefit plans. Registered nurses who serve as care coordinators employed by participating practices are a central feature of the initiative. They use patient-specific reports and practice performance reports provided by Cigna to improve care coordination, identify and close care gaps, and address other opportunities for quality improvement. We report interim quality and cost results for three geographically and structurally diverse provider practices in Arizona, New Hampshire, and Texas. Although not statistically significant, these early results revealed favorable trends in total medical costs and quality of care, suggesting that a shared-savings accountable care model and collaborative support from the payer can enable practices to take meaningful steps toward full accountability for care quality and efficiency.
authors.affiliation: Cigna, Hartford, Connecticut, USA. dick.salmon@cigna.com
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Salmon
authors.forename: Mark I
authors.initials: MI
authors.lastname: Sanderson
authors.forename: Barbara A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Walters
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kennedy
authors.forename: Robert C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.forename: Alan M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Muney
mesh_terms: D060866:Accountable Care Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration*; D001130:Arizona; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards; D005260:Female; D006123:Group Practice / Q000458:organization & administration; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008329:Managed Care Programs / Q000458:organization & administration; D009513:New Hampshire; D010816:Physician Incentive Plans / Q000458:organization & administration; D011216:Practice Management, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013781:Texas