WellCare of Connecticut, a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG), and Iora Health announced today a new partnership to deliver relationship-based care to WellCare's Medicare Advantage members in Connecticut. WellCare and Iora will partner to provide coordinated care with a deep focus on the power of relationships with the goal of improving patient health and well-being.
With a mission to help members live better, healthier lives, WellCare focuses on providing the right care in the right setting to its members. Iora Health has practices in six states that are tailored specifically to the population each serves. Iora began serving WellCare members with Medicare Advantage plans effective Sept. 1, 2017.
"At WellCare, we are committed to continually improving the quality of care and service we provide to our members," said Andrew Clifton, WellCare's Medicare executive director of Connecticut, Maine and North Carolina. "Our partnership with Iora is a key component to continue providing our members with a unique and personalized primary care experience."
Unique features of Iora's primary care relationship-based model include:
- A team focus that includes the patient and their loved ones, a doctor, health coach and behavioral health specialist who are connected to the community.
- Appointments that help solidify relationships, engender trust and ensure patients feel heard and respected.
- Close collaboration with specialists so patients have a coordinated care plan that addresses their needs.
- Access to Chirp, Iora's proprietary collaborative care platform, designed to support the physician-patient relationship and allows patients to schedule appointments, access their records and communicate with their care team.
"At Iora, we fundamentally believe that relationships heal. Our team, culture, care model and technology are designed to support this," said Duncan Reece, vice president and general manager of Iora Health. "With a mission to restore humanity to health care by delivering world-class patient experience, improving quality outcomes, lowering total medical expenses, and creating a fantastic environment for care teams to work, we look for like-minded companies, like WellCare, to support the delivery of Iora's relationship-based care. We are thrilled to be able to offer Iora primary care to WellCare members."
The Iora Health practice open to WellCare members will be located at 1000 Avery Heights, Suite 100, in Hartford, Connecticut.
As of June 30, 2017, WellCare serves approximately 7,000 Medicare Advantage members and 16,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members in Connecticut.
About WellCare Health Plans, Inc. Headquartered in Tampa, Fla., WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG) focuses exclusively on providing government-sponsored managed care services, primarily through Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare Prescription Drug Plans, to families, children, seniors and individuals with complex medical needs. WellCare serves approximately 4.4 million members nationwide as of June 30, 2017. For more information about WellCare, please visit the company's website at www.wellcare.comor view the company's videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/WellCareHealthPlan.
About Iora Health Iora Health is building a different kind of health system to deliver high impact relationship based care. With a mission to restore humanity to healthcare and a goal to transform healthcare overall, Iora Health's care model provides extraordinary service to patients to ensure improved health outcomes while lowering overall plan costs. Our patients benefit from better access to care, office and non-office based encounters, an accessible and transparent medical record, and robust educational offerings. Our practices across the U.S. enjoy the benefits of smaller panel sizes, closer relationships with patients, and the opportunity to lead systemic change in health care delivery while working with a true team. For more information, please visit www.iorahealth.com.
