Florida Blue and Primary Partners Introduce Accountable Care Program

Florida Blue and Primary Partners, a network of Central Florida primary care and specialty physicians, are implementing an accountable care program that aims to improve the quality and efficiency of care through a more coordinated patient-centered approach.

The overall goals of the accountable care program are to improve the individual patient care experience and overall health, as well as decrease medical costs. This is done by ensuring patients, especially those who are chronically ill, get the right care at the right time, while avoiding unnecessary duplication of services.

An accountable care program is an important step in moving away from the traditional payment model that focuses on fee for service to a payment model that creates value and focuses more on member outcomes with a holistic approach to patient care. Under this type of shared savings program, Florida Blue collaborates with Primary Partners and its network of health care providers, creating care programs that allow for increased collaboration between the two organizations for 12,300 Florida Blue members in Lake, Orange, Osceola and Polk Counties.

“Florida Blue continues to introduce innovative new programs across the state designed to improve member care while keeping medical costs down,” said Kirk Fischer, vice president of Delivery System for Florida Blue. “Our agreement with Primary Partners is the 27th accountable care program we’ve launched in Florida. These agreements allow us to collaborate with providers to fulfill our mission of helping people and communities achieve better health by offering a better care experience that improves the overall health of members.”

“Primary Partners is proud to partner with Florida Blue in its accountable care program,” said Shazia Nasir, M.D., Primary Partners Board chair. “Our independent physician owned, led and managed network is committed to providing high quality, cost effective care to our patients to achieve improved results and patient satisfaction. Our goal is to reduce hospital readmissions, eliminate unnecessary emergency room visits and end duplication of services. Our team is committed to support our patients towards better health, and we will strive to minimize costs by sharing information and meeting superior targets.”

About Florida Blue:
Florida Blue is a leader in Florida’s health care industry. Driven by its mission to help people and communities achieve better health, Florida Blue has 5 million health care members, while nearly 18 million people in 12 states, two U.S. territories and the District of Columbia are served through its affiliated companies. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Fla., it is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies. For more information, visit www.FloridaBlue.com.

About Primary Partners, LLC
Primary Partners, LLC was founded in 2012 and is 100% Physician Owned and Operated. Our integrated network consists of Primary Care Physicians and a Network of Specialists whose mission is to preserve physician independence while collaborating together as a clinically-integrated group to improve patient education, outcomes and navigate the changing landscape of healthcare. Our proven track record of success in our Medicare and commercial Payor Shared Savings contracts was demonstrated in annual shared savings over $16 Million and our quality success was highlighted in Becker's Hospital Review.

Our executive management team and board focuses on providing revenue opportunities to our individual practices through federal and commercial contracting, new healthcare initiatives such as CPC+, enhanced billing and coding, value based payments, Quality Measures/HEDIS, MACRA/MIPS and much more. Visit Primary Partners online at http://primarypartners.org/ for more information on our growing high-performing network.