Visiting Nurse Service of New York Convenes Community-based Consortium to Promote Integrated Care for Dual Eligibles (PRIDE)

NEW YORK, April 23, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The VNSNY Center for Home Care Policy & Research is launching the PRIDE Consortium, a partnership dedicated to Promoting Integrated Care for Dual Eligibles. The Consortium is a select group of seven community based health plans identified by experts across the United States for their commitment, capacity and progress in delivering high-quality, coordinated care to high-needs, high-cost Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries. It is an initiative of the VNSNY Research Center and is supported by a grant from The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation based in New York City.

The Chief Executive Officers, Chief Medical Officers and other senior executives of the seven PRIDE Consortium plans met in New York City on April 8-9 to discuss common issues and identify Consortium priorities for the coming months.

The Consortium members are CareSource (OH), Commonwealth Care Alliance (MA), Health Plan of San Mateo (CA), ICare (WI), Together4Health (IL), UCare (MN), and VNSNY CHOICE (NY) (see contact information below). Together they will engage in collaborative problem-solving, extract and share lessons about their key challenges and success factors, delineate strategies and best practices for achieving high performance and disseminate these widely to other health plans, consumer groups and federal and state policy makers.

The Consortium members were selected from seven states that are moving forward either under state-specific demonstrations or as part of the federal "Financial Alignment" demonstration administered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the authority of the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Under these demonstrations, the federal government and the states are rapidly pursuing policies to promote integrated care for individuals dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid services, who account for $300 billion a year of Medicare and Medicaid expenditures.

The Consortium plans serve many high-needs, high-cost populations, including individuals with multiple chronic illnesses, physical disability, mental illness, frailty and/or dementia – especially those who are dually eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid services due to their poor health, advanced age and poverty. Among the issues the Consortium will address are effective models for expanding service and support networks, ways to better integrate and improve care coordination between medical and long term services and supports, best practices for effectively engaging consumers, measures to continuously monitor and improve quality while managing costs efficiently, and strategies for expanding enrollment and retaining members.

The project efforts are being led by Penny Hollander Feldman, PhD, Senior Vice President of Research and Evaluation at VNSNY and Director of the Center for Home Care Policy and Research, who will work in tandem with Carol Raphael, Advanced Leadership Fellow at Harvard University, Kathryn Haslanger, Chief Executive Officer of the JASA in New York City, and Eliot Fishman, Principal, Health Management Associates. 

About VNSNY Center for Home Care Policy & Research

Established in 1993 by the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, the Center for Home Care Policy & Research has become recognized as the pre-eminent research center for home and community-based care and is the only one of its kind in the nation.  The Center conducts scientifically rigorous research to promote the delivery of high-quality, cost-effective care in the home and community and supports informed decision making by policy makers, payers, managers, practitioners, and consumers of home-and community-based services.  For more information, please visit www.vnsny.org/research.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Promoting Integrated Care for Dual Eligibles - Consortium

SOURCE Visiting Nurse Service of New York