Aetna and Mount Sinai to collaborate on program to raise quality of care and lower costs

Aetna and Mount Sinai Health Partners, a group that consists of Mount Sinai Health Systems and voluntary providers, have announced this week that the two organizations have come together to form a partnership with the goal of improving coordinated care for patients and decreasing health care costs.

The agreement reached is for three years and states that any member of Aetna, currently signed up under a commercial plan, who receives any type of care from Mount Sinai doctors and physicians will receive high quality care at a lower cost under the program.

Agreeing to the program is Aetna’s way of sticking to their strategy to convert to payments based on value rather than its current fee-for-service structure. Mount Sinai made the agreement as part of their devised plan to also switch its administering of health care from a fee-for-service payment system to one that will focus on population health management. This is why Mount Sinai has agreed to collaborate with Aetna, to align payment method goals while improving value for its patients and consumers.

The program agreed upon by the two organizations offers a payment model that will reward physicians who meet specific criteria for health outcomes that will help to improve the quality of care.