Delaware County Medical Society Summer/Fall 2020 - 16

FEATURE

A STATUS REPORT
By Jaan Sidorov, MD

I

Pennsylvania's insurers had never seen a network made
up of independent physicians band together in this way.
Eventually, six contracts (Geisinger Health Plan, Aetna,
Gateway, Capital BlueCross, Highmark and Humana) were
inked by the PA Clinical Network, and a separate pediatricfocused contract was developed by Women and Children's.

This early success gave the PA Clinical Network the
momentum it needed as it fanned out across the state
to approach other independent physicians. Eventually,
it signed up another 158 physicians and providers, all
of whom are in private practice and keenly interested in
working together to increase the value of health care and be
fairly compensated for their work effort.

All the contracts described above are in-force for 2020, and
the PA Clinical Network staff are hard at work developing
the systems and processes necessary for physician support,
including information technology, care management
and staff coaching. The information technology includes
HealthEC, a population health platform that can work with
any electronic health record to summarize, analyze and
display key outcomes at the clinic as well as at the network
levels.

Once a critical mass of physicians had been achieved,
the PA Clinical Network and its sister organization, the
Women and Children's Alliance, approached Pennsylvania's
insurers for network contracts. These negotiations took
months, not only because of their complexity, but because

It should be noted that when the total number of
independent physicians and providers who have been
assisted by the Society's networks is added to the prior
count of physicians and providers who were helped with
meeting the ill-conceived MACRA law, the total is 492

n 2018, the Pennsylvania Medical Society's subsidiary,
the PA Clinical Network, signed a participating
agreement with the 180 physicians and advance
practice clinicians of Women and Children's
Healthcare Alliance. Made up of independent pediatric
practices in southeast Pennsylvania, this clinically
integrated network was the first evidence that the
Medical Society could support physician contracting.

14 DELAWARE COUNTY MEDICINE & HEALTH

summer/fall 2020
Delaware County Medical Society Summer/Fall 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Delaware County Medical Society Summer/Fall 2020
