CommonSpirit recognized as national leader in value-based care

Chicago, Ill.—September 9, 2022—CommonSpirit Health, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems, announced today that it delivered improved quality and $122 million in savings to Medicare for the 2021 performance year of the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP). The program was designed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve care for patients, while making health care more affordable. Through its 13 accountable care organizations (ACOs), CommonSpirit improved care outcomes for 305,000 Medicare patients, with higher savings and quality scores than the national ACO average. 

“Core to our mission is improving the health and well-being of the communities we serve, including the most vulnerable populations. We are one of the nation’s largest providers of value-based care, and we are focused on growing those programs and delivering quality, affordable care to more communities across America,”  said Thomas McGinn, MD, System Executive Vice President of Physician Enterprise, CommonSpirit Health. “These results demonstrate that we are making a meaningful impact and driving large scale change.” 

Over the past four years of participation in the MSSP, CommonSpirit has saved Medicare more than $320 million by prioritizing proactive outreach and addressing not only medical, but also behavioral and social needs. For example, annual wellness visits are key to keeping seniors healthy by allowing providers to proactively address health concerns, while enabling patients to receive appropriate preventive clinical services. In 2021, CommonSpirit ACOs provided 13 percent more annual wellness visits for seniors than the prior year.  

“ACOs have faced unique challenges during the pandemic as patients have been more likely to miss preventive screenings and other routine care that is essential to keeping our most vulnerable patients healthy,” said Nicholas Stine, MD, System Senior Vice President, Population Health, Physician Enterprise. “We rolled out initiatives in 2020 that have gained momentum throughout the pandemic, which resulted in more than 200,000 annual wellness visits, and improved outcomes among patients with diabetes and hypertension, in particular.”

Among the top 10 percent of the high-risk patient population for CommonSpirit ACOs, the majority of patients have diabetes or hypertension, or both. In patients with diabetes, CommonSpirit saw an overall 23 percent improvement across the system in blood sugar level control through a series of initiatives, including the implementation of RN Population Health Coaches that engage and educate patients, improve management of chronic conditions and medication, and help close care gaps through annual wellness visits. As the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, diabetes and diabetes-related health complications can be serious and costly, resulting in $327 billion annually in medical costs and lost work wages for people with diagnosed diabetes, a figure twice as high when compared to those without diabetes.1 Proper blood sugar management can reduce the risk of eye, kidney and nerve disease by 40 percent.2

Through its initiatives for patients with hypertension, CommonSpirit engaged teams from clinical sites with the greatest opportunity for improvement to review performance, identify barriers, discuss evidence-based guidelines, and downstream benefits of well-controlled hypertension; 90 percent of these sites demonstrated improvement post-intervention. CommonSpirit also focused on improving patient engagement by scheduling follow-up care at time of encounter and providing culturally tailored self-management tools. This translated to an additional 22,000 patients with controlled blood pressure, potentially averting 586 cardiovascular events and saving 262 lives. 

“We could not have this kind of impact without integrating and coordinating care from multiple teams throughout our 21-state health system,” said McGinn. “Across the continuum, we have a strong network of care providers who are collaborating to ensure our patients receive the right care in the right place at the right time.”

Many of CommonSpirit’s local ACOs realized significant savings and saw strong quality scores. Examples include:

• Rainier Health Network in Washington provided care for over 38K Medicare beneficiaries, and saved Medicare $27.8 million while improving their quality score to 98 percent.
  
• Arkansas Health Network provided care for over 28K Medicare beneficiaries and saved Medicare $8.1 million.
  
• Baylor St. Luke’s Health Network in Texas provided care for over 14K Medicare beneficiaries and saved Medicare $12.2 million.
  
• Alegent Health Partners in Nebraska provided care for almost 22K Medicare beneficiaries and saved Medicare $16.1 million while improving their quality score to 99 percent.
  
• Dignity Health Care Network in California provided care for over 68K Medicare beneficiaries and saved Medicare $28.4 million.  
  
• Mission Health Care Network (TN), MercyOne ACOs (IA), St Joseph Health Partners (TX) and North Central Arizona Accountable Care (AZ) also together provided care for over 90K Medicare beneficiaries and saved Medicare $31 million.

1 “The Cost of Diabetes | ADA.” American Diabetes Association, https://diabetes.org/about-us/statistics/cost-diabetes. Accessed 8 September 2022.

2 https://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/diabetes-complications/diabetes-and-chronic-kidney-disease.html

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About CommonSpirit Health
CommonSpirit Health is a nonprofit, Catholic health system dedicated to advancing health for all people. It was created in February 2019 by Catholic Health Initiatives and Dignity Health. CommonSpirit is committed to creating healthier communities, delivering exceptional patient care, and ensuring every person has access to quality health care. With a team of approximately 150,000 employees and 20,000 physicians and advanced practice providers, CommonSpirit Health operates 140 hospitals and more than 1,000 care sites across 21 states. Learn more at www.commonspirit.org.