Heritage ACO Focuses On Renal Care

The Heritage California ACO in Los Angeles has teamed with Fresenius Medical Care to provide targeted services to its enrollees with end-stage renal disease.

Under the agreement, Fresenius will create a population health management program for Heritage California's enrollees who have the condition. 

The initiative will contain many of the provisions of a long-term demonstration project the Massachusetts-based Fresenius conducted on behalf of Medicare enrollees for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that concluded in 2010.

According to Fresenius' data, patients in the program experienced a 24% drop in overall mortality, a 20% reduction in hospitalizations, and costs 12% below those of typical Medicare Advantage enrollees and 4% below that of Medicare fee-for-service. 

A Heritage spokesperson said the number of ACO enrollees who suffer from the condition is minimal, just over1% of the total population of 100,000. However, their cost of care is approximately eight times that of the other members of the ACO.

The linchpin of the Fresenius program consists of keeping close biometric tabs on the patients through a home-based electronic monitoring system that broadcasts health status back to their providers. Nephrologists contracted by Fresenius also direct all the care for the population, acting as their principle care provider, or “captain of the ship,” according to a company spokesperson. 

Patients will have access to the 87 dialysis centers Fresenius operates in the Los Angeles area, according to the company spokesperson.

”Heritage Provider Network has a long history of providing high-quality, cost-effective coordinated care for large populations,” said Richard Merkin, M.D., chief executive officer of the Heritage Provider Network, which oversees the Heritage California ACO. “We are excited to be partnering with Fresenius Medical Care. Indeed, we see this partnership as a model for how healthcare should be delivered in the United States.”