New health care partnership announced

AUSTIN (KXAN) - The Seton Healthcare Family has taken a major step toward developing a new model for delivering health care in Central Texas by partnering with Austin Regional Clinic to create Seton Health Alliance, an Accountable Care Organization, it was announced Monday.

An Accountable Care Organization is a relatively new term that describes a system where healthcare providers — including primary care physicians, specialists, and hospitals — work together and accept collective responsibility for the cost and quality of care delivered to a population of patients.

The Seton Health Alliance ACO will be open to community physicians and other providers, and plans to expand its collaborators and programs over the next several years.  The Alliance is an integrated health networks nationwide selected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to participate in the federal government’s Pioneer ACO program. Austin is one of 32 areas chosen for the program.

“Creation of the Seton Heath Alliance is part of our plan to provide patients and payers with better value — efficient, appropriate and quality health care,” said Charles J. Barnett, FACHE, president  and CEO, Seton Healthcare Family. “Over its 30-year history, Austin Regional Clinic has had remarkable success as a multispecialty health care group focusing on quality comprehensive care. Through the Alliance, Seton will partner with ARC and other community physician groups to integrate primary and specialty care as well as other health services, to provide the right care in the right place at the right time.

“It's not just coincidence that Central Texas has been selected as home for one of the nation's first and most important pilot programs aimed at creating new ways to keep people healthier while also bringing down costs. The selection of Seton Healthcare Family and Austin Regional Clinic to run a Pioneer Accountable Care pilot helps the rest of the country see what we already know here in Austin -- that Central Texas is the home of a uniquely innovative and collaborative climate across business, education, health and civic sectors which encourages new thinking about old problems. It's that ability to dream big and turn those dreams into reality that should encourage us all to believe that a new medical school, cutting edge teaching hospital and the other pieces of Sen. Kirk Watson's "10 in 10" are practical and achievable within the next decade."

Watson has been involved in efforts to bring a medical school, teaching hospital and health science center to Austin.

“The Seton Healthcare Family's announcement today is a further demonstration of how Austin and Central Texas can become a major health science center that includes a medical school, 21st Century teaching hospital and uniquely Austin health clinics in our neighborhoods," Watson said Monday. "Our community has a number of extraordinary healthcare assets. Creative alliances, like the partnership between Seton and the Austin Regional Clinic that focus healthcare on the specific needs of individuals, add to and strengthen those assets.

“Austin is developing a new model for growing medical education by embracing the vision to achieve ‘10 Goals in 10 Years.’  The Seton Healthcare Alliance, a community based, person-centered healthcare alliance, is precisely the sort of effort that will help fulfill our goals and our vision.”

Person-centered

Seton Health Alliance’s goal will be to coordinate physician visits, hospital stays and services such as physical therapy, imaging and laboratory. The ACO and its physicians aim to take a more proactive approach through enhanced patient education, care reminders and support for patients transitioning home from the hospital. Patients will have a choice of physicians and will not be limited to a specific provider network.

“The Alliance’s ACO model will aim to offer convenience and high levels of service consistent with Austin Regional Clinic’s core approach to providing care,” said Norman Chenven, M.D., ARC CEO and founder. “We want our patients to be active participants in their own treatment plans, guided by doctors and staff who listen and honor patient choices. The Alliance will offer enhanced coordinated care in Central Texas in an effort to improve the health of our entire community.”

Initially, the Alliance will serve current Medicare patients of ARC and Seton’s Community Health Centers — Topfer, Kozmetsky and McCarthy — but the network will be open to community physicians interested in participating in its programs. 

Information for Medicare Patients

Medicare patients whose providers participate in an ACO maintain all of their Medicare rights, including the right to choose any doctors and providers that accept Medicare.  Patients who have Medicare coverage through a private Medicare Advantage insurance plan are not eligible to participate in an ACO.  Patients with a Medicare supplement are eligible to participate.

ACO physicians will use support staff and new