ProMedica’s Leveraging its Strengths in HCR ManorCare Integration

ProMedica recently announced a new Healthy Aging Institute. The new institute “leverages the unique strengths and capabilities of ProMedica and its recently added HCR ManorCare senior living division to help redefine healthy aging, provide a best-in-class experience to the nation’s growing senior population, and drive positive reform. The health system acquired more than 200 ManorCare locations in the 2018 deal.

The institute will focus on three areas: innovation and research, including identifying and developing new health and wellness models for older adults; education and training to prepare current and future generations of leaders and clinicians to support senior health and well-being; and advocacy, including serving as a catalyst for industry reform.

ProMedica offers acute and ambulatory care, an insurance company with a dental plan, and post-acute and academic business lines. The organization has more than 70,000 employees, 13 hospitals, 2,700 physicians and advanced practice providers with privileges, 900+ healthcare providers employed by ProMedica Physicians, a health plan, and 450 assisted living facilities, skilled nursing and rehabilitation centers, memory care communities, outpatient rehabilitation clinics, and hospice and home health care agencies. 

ProMedica finalized the transaction in 2018 that added HCR ManorCare operations to the ProMedica organization. With HCR ManorCare being the nation’s second largest post-acute and long-term care provider, this partnership has enabled ProMedica to significantly scale its system. The combined organization provides an unmatched breadth of services and capabilities, including: a hospital system, a physician group, telehealth, several health plans, an academic affiliation, skilled nursing, assisted living, rehab, home health and hospice.

ProMedica strengths include clinical programs that HCR ManorCare operations can benefit from, including wound care expertise. Contracting with commercial health insurers can get better by using the data and processes that ProMedica has obtained by operating a successful managed-care health plan, Paramount, for 30 years.

Hospitals are trying their best to place patients in the most appropriate cost setting for their conditions. And having HCR ManorCare integrated with a hospital system gives it a leg up in pricing new care models. Such models focus on a bulk price for an episode of illness or injury rather than a fee for every service rendered. It’s the shift to so-called value versus volume.