Integration At A Whole New Level

July 15, 2011

The past twenty years have been full of experiments in forward integration strategies by provider organizations—creating managed care entities, risk based contracts, and other mechanisms to retain control over health care spending. The track record of those experiments is spotty at best, with lots of failed initiatives and some very notable successes. The forward integration strategy du jour is the accountable care organization, which is a payer-like collaboration of providers that manages health insurance dollars.

But now we have a new integration play—backward . . .