Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Elliot Health System and Frisbie Memorial Hospital announced on Oct. 5 that they have partnered with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care to form Benevera Health, a company devoted to improving health care in New Hampshire at reduced costs.
In the past, DHMC has partnered with various other companies and medical centers to reduce costs and improve care. The goal of this partnership is similar — to provide one-on-one support to patients with chronic and complicated conditions or emerging symptoms.
This company will bring together clinical, financial and operational information in an effort to provide analytics to clinicians working to improve health care quality, DHMC announced.
“The idea is to keep people healthy,” DHMC director of external relations Rick Adams said.
ElevateHealth president and Benevera Health president and chief executive officer Corbin Petro said that the company aims to make care management a more seamless process. Benevera aims to have readily available resources at patients’ disposal so that the patients may proactively reach out for support and manage their conditions before symptoms become acute and require them to go directly to clinical settings, she said.
Petro said that the new company also provides a great opportunity for physicians and health-related experts to work together and learn from each other.
Benevera will provide more information to health care clinicians about the best practices to guide care recommendations and offer the support of New Hampshire health care professionals to address health issues, according to the DHMC news release.
The entity will also allow for a more comprehensive analysis of payer and provider information in an effort to optimize the cost and delivery of care and enact member health monitoring systems to reduce the need for urgent care.
Benevera will ultimately lower health care costs, Adams said.
“The rigid costs of care just aren’t sustainable,” Adams said.
According to the Benevera Health website, the company will deconstruct legacy barriers between insurers, hospitals and caregivers to level and lessen health care costs.
Experts predict that patient premiums in 2016 will be approximately 4 percent lower than they would be if this partnership did not exist, the release announced.
Benevera Health is not an insurance company, a fact that distinguishes it from other similar companies, Adams said. Rather, it is a population health improvement company.
All partners — DHMC, Elliot Health System, Frisbie Memorial Hospital and Harvard Pilgrim Health — own Benevera, according to the release. They will share financial and clinical outcome responsibilities, and each partner will have a say in how the company is run and how its products are designed.
Benevera will support all of Harvard Pilgrim’s more than 80,000 insured members. It is anticipated to support all self-insured members in the future, according to the release.
Adams said that there are no concerns or drawbacks he can identify regarding the company at the moment.
“There really is no other entity that includes all of the different elements of health care,” Petro said, adding that Benevera is not modeled after any existing companies.
Operations will begin on Jan. 1, 2016, with the partners intending to hire approximately 40 health care professionals.
There will always be a need for a high value of medical care, Adams said. Coordinated care leads to lower costs and better quality of service, which in turn promotes and creates much more auspicious health outcomes.
By connecting proactive patient care and good practice analytics with health care delivery, Benevera will improve patient health, according to the DHMC release.
Stanford University health research and policy professor Laurence Baker said that it is fascinating to see companies develop new products promoting health care and expressed his hope for the progressive, innovative future of medicine and health.
“It’s an exciting time for health care,” Baker said.
