SAN FRANCISCO & BLOOMFIELD, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Brown & Toland Physicians has produced excellent second-year results in affordability with a market-leading medical cost trend that was 5.4 percent lower than the local San Francisco Bay Area market. Cigna’s (NYSE:CI) collaborative care initiative with Brown & Toland Physicians confirms that the program continues to make progress toward achieving the goals of improved health, affordability and patient experience in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Cigna Collaborative Care is the company’s approach to accomplishing the same population health goals as accountable care organizations, or ACOs. Through this collaboration between Cigna and Brown & Toland, participating Brown & Toland physicians delivered cost effective, quality care to more than 12,000 customers covered by a Cigna PPO health plan.
Since 2012, Cigna has provided Brown & Toland with customized reports detailing cost, efficiency and quality performance as guidance for the care provided to its Cigna customers. These reports help to assess trends and cost outliers, and identify opportunities for cost enhancement and improving care.
Brown & Toland’s performance also resulted in a reduction of facility inpatient costs, down 3 percent, and a reduction of facility outpatient costs, down 6 percent. Additionally, Brown & Toland reduced their professional costs by 1 percent while maintaining quality patient care.
“Brown & Toland’s high-quality, cost-efficient network of independent physicians, coupled with Cigna’s experienced collaborative care team, were the keys to the success of this collaboration,” said Andrew Snyder, M.D., Brown & Toland’s chief medical officer. “For this commercial ACO population the focus was to ensure that patients received the right care in the right setting. Our outpatient success was a result of our strong partnerships with ancillary facilities as well as our providers’ commitment to decrease avoidable emergency room visits by providing easy access to primary care services. Customers in the inpatient setting had the benefit of working directly with our nurse care managers and care coordinators to make sure they received the support they needed, both in the hospital and after discharge.”
“These remarkable results show what can be accomplished when a health plan and a health care delivery system work together with common goals of delivering higher quality care while keeping costs in check,” said Peter Welch, president and general manager for Cigna in Northern California and the Pacific Northwest.
Critical to the program’s benefits are the clinical care coordinators, including nurses, physicians, and other professionals employed by Brown & Toland, who help customers with chronic conditions or other health challenges navigate the health care system. The care coordinators enhance care by using customer-specific data from Cigna and Brown & Toland to identify individuals being discharged from the hospital who might be at risk for readmission, as well as assist patients who may be overdue for important health screenings or who may have skipped a prescription refill.
Customers also receive health education and have access to both organizations’ wellness and clinical programs, such as disease management programs for diabetes, heart disease and other conditions; and lifestyle management programs, such as tobacco cessation, weight control and stress management.
Cigna has been at the forefront of the accountable care organization movement since 2008 and now has 122 Cigna Collaborative Care arrangements with large physician groups that span 29 states, reach more than 1.3 million commercial customers and encompass more than 50,000 doctors, including more than 24,000 primary care physicians and more than 27,000 specialists.
About Brown and Toland Medical Group
Founded in 1992, Brown & Toland Physicians is a leading network of independent doctors focused on delivering personalized, high quality, and affordable healthcare to the San Francisco Bay Area. Brown & Toland’s 1,500 physicians, who care for more than 300,000 HMO and PPO patients, are dedicated to improving care through a number of patient-centered programs and use electronic tools to coordinate and deliver care. The group is leading the way forward in healthcare with its patient-centered medical home, My Health Medical Group, and by participating in multiple accountable care projects, such as the Pioneer Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model, and other ACOs for both HMO and PPO patients. To learn more, visit brownandtoland.com.
About Cigna
Cigna Corporation (NYSE: CI) is a global health service company dedicated to helping people improve their health, well-being and sense of security. All products and services are provided exclusively by or through operating subsidiaries of Cigna Corporation, including Connecticut General Life Insurance Company, Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company, Life Insurance Company of North America and Cigna Life Insurance Company of New York. Such products and services include an integrated suite of health services, such as medical, dental, behavioral health, pharmacy, vision, supplemental benefits, and other related products including group life, accident and disability insurance. Cigna maintains sales capability in 30 countries and jurisdictions, and has over 86 million customer relationships throughout the world. To learn more about Cigna®, including links to follow us on Facebook or Twitter, visit www.cigna.com.
