Primary Care Physician-Led ACOs, in Partnership with Universal American Subsidiary, Generated $57 Million in Savings for Medicare Shared Savings Program

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Universal American Corp. UAM announced today that the Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) it formed in partnership with primary care physicians generated $57 million in total program savings for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) as part of the Medicare Shared Savings Program for program years 2012 and 2013.

In partnership with primary care physicians, Universal American's subsidiary, Collaborative Health Systems formed 30 ACOs to participate in the Shared Savings Program for program years 2012 and 2013. These ACOs represent over 2,800 participating physicians serving more than 350,000 Medicare Fee-for-Service beneficiaries. In the aggregate, these ACO's will receive payments of $20 million, part to be paid to physicians and part to defray a portion of the costs that Collaborative Health Systems has incurred.

Of Collaborative Health Systems' 30 ACOs with start dates in 2012 and 2013, the results showed that:

• 3 ACOs, serving more than 56,000 Medicare beneficiaries and including our flagship ACO in Houston, qualified for savings;
• 7 ACOs, serving more than 80,000 Medicare beneficiaries, generated savings but fell below their Minimum Savings Rate (MSR) required to share savings with CMS;
• 8 ACOs were within 2 percent of their benchmark;
• 8 ACOs were 2 percent or more above their benchmark;
• 4 ACOs will have results released in October; and
• All ACOs met CMS's quality reporting standards

Richard A. Barasch, CEO of Universal American, underscored the key role primary care physicians play in the success of ACOs. “We have built our business model around the concept that primary care physicians are in the best position to drive significant improvements in the cost and quality of healthcare, especially for Medicare beneficiaries. Our job is to enable them by providing a structure that offers appropriate incentives for such improvements and actionable information that help them achieve these goals. This concept underlies our long term success in the Medicare Advantage program, which we now are importing to the Medicare Shared Savings Program. We remain firmly committed to the ACO business and are optimistic about the outlook for 2014 and beyond, especially since many of the ACOs are close to the performance line and are showing positive trends in areas such as reduced hospitalizations and readmissions. Going forward, we will focus our resources on those ACOs where the shared savings program can work and where we can truly help impact the cost and quality of medical care.”

Jeffery Spight, senior vice president of market operations at Collaborative Health Systems, noted that the company's ACOs operate across many different settings, serving Medicare beneficiaries in urban, rural and suburban areas. “Collaborative Health Systems has some of the most successful physician-led ACOs, which shows in the positive results for ACOs included in this reporting,” he said. “We are especially pleased that the physicians we have had a long-standing relationship with experienced positive results in 2013, and were able to deliver quality care to their Medicare beneficiaries while reducing costs.”

About Collaborative Health Systems

Collaborative Health Systems (CHS) is a member of the Universal American Corp. UAM family of healthcare companies. CHS partners with providers throughout the country in the development of Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). CHS provides a range of care coordination, analytics and reporting, technology and other administrative services to enable physicians and other healthcare professionals to deliver improved care, improved health and lower healthcare costs to their patients. For more information, visit http://www.CollaborativeHealthSystems.com.

About Universal American Corp.

Universal American UAM, through our family of healthcare companies, provides health benefits to people covered by Medicare and/or Medicaid. We are dedicated to working collaboratively with healthcare professionals in order to improve the health and well-being of those we serve and reduce healthcare costs. For more information on Universal American, please visit our website at www.UniversalAmerican.com.

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