Boeing has selected MemorialCare Health System as its preferred partnership provider on a new, customized health plan to employees and dependents in the Southland, the aerospace giant and health system announced today.
MemorialCare was selected after a rigorous search process for a partner on the first-of-its-kind Boeing customized health plan option in California, chosen to serve Boeing’s approximately 15,000 employees and 22,000 dependents in California. MemorialCare will serve almost all of Boeing’s employees and dependents in the Long Beach, South Bay and Orange County communities, according to a release issued by MemorialCare.
“MemorialCare and its partners have a long track record of health care leadership and innovation in Southern California, as well as a strong market presence,” said Jeff White, Boeing’s director of Health Care Strategy in a statement.
Dubbed the “Preferred Partnership,” the collaboration aims to improve health, enhance the patient experience and make health care more affordable by emphasizing preventive care under MemorialCare’s Health Alliance Accountable Care Organization (ACO), which will appear as an added option to Boeing’s open enrollment this fall. Services are slated to begin on January 1, 2017.
“MemorialCare and Boeing aspire to deliver a health care experience as well-engineered and trustworthy as the aerospace products designed and built by Boeing employees,” said Barry Arbuckle, Ph.D., MemorialCare Health System president & CEO in a statement. “Every major initiative MemorialCare pursues is thoughtfully executed to prepare for transformative, value-based health care products for employers and health plans like the Boeing partnership.”
Specifically, the ACO model focuses on holistic health, best practice, evidence-based prevention, diagnoses and treatments to identify and treat underlying health problems before they become chronic conditions. This approach was actually pioneered nationally by MemorialCare, according to the release—a large factor in its selection.
Benefits offered to Boeing employees who choose MemorialCare Health Alliance revolve around incentives at lower costs, including deductions for health care coverage, no office-visit copayments for network primary care physician visits, 100 percent coverage for generic-drug prescriptions (for high-deductible plans, benefits apply when deductible is met) and freedom to choose specialists within the network without a primary care physician referral.
Additionally, members of the plan will have access to increased company contributions to a health savings account for eligible participants, quicker access to network primary care providers and specialists, additional after-hours care, more personalized and coordinated care, greater use of electronic messaging with providers and access to medical records. Emergency care will reportedly be covered at in-network levels, even if received outside the MemorialCare network.
“Because the majority of Boeing employees live throughout the greater Long Beach, South Bay and Orange County communities well served by MemorialCare and its partners, many are accustomed to and comfortable with the network’s primary care and specialty physicians, hospitals, outpatient and community outreach programs,” said White.
As part of MemorialCare’s perks, patients will be looped into the health system’s broader partnerships with other groups, such as the Torrance Memorial Health System, UC Irvine Health, PIH Health and affiliated physician groups—MemorialCare Medical Group, Greater Newport Physicians (GNP), Edinger Medical Group, Torrance Memorial Integrated Physicians, PIH Health Physicians medical group, UC Irvine Health Medical Group, UC Irvine Health University Physicians and Surgeons specialists; select physicians from Monarch Healthcare; and hundreds of independent physicians. The network encompasses more than 2,400 primary care and specialty physicians and providers, 9 hospitals and 71 community-based ambulatory surgery, medical imaging, urgent care and dialysis centers and dozens of other services throughout the Southland, according to the release.