A new collaboration for transitional care between Florida-based Big Bend Hospice (BBH) and the Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare (TMH) system has more going on behind the scenes.
Big Bend, a nonprofit provider, in 2021 formed a new parent company called Seven Oaks Health. TMH has entered into an affiliation agreement with Seven Oaks Health, as the new organization works over the next five years to build a larger value-based network to provide transitional and palliative care, social determinants support, as well as care navigation and other services.
Looking to the future, the organizations’ plans to engage in value-based care could manifest through participation in the Accountable Care Organization Realizing Equity, Access and Community Health (ACO REACH) model.
“Ultimately, the idea of creating the network would be to enter into value-based reimbursement models. We haven’t engaged in the health plans yet, because this is still pretty fresh. We’re still working through some of the integration plans with the health system,” BBH COO Jon Wood told Palliative Care News. “Certainly the idea is to take pretty big leaps towards value-based care. We do have some initiatives this year to help us make pretty big strides towards that, probably starting with an ACO model. We’re really focusing on ACO REACH.”
The new transitional care program is designed to ensure smooth and effective transitions of care and to prevent patients from slipping through the cracks in a fragmented health care system. Both partners will contribute strategic guidance to the program, with Big Bend Hospice managing the operations, business development and clinical services.
The partnership establishes a network of interconnected health care services intended to facilitate seamless patient transitions between settings, according to a statement from the two companies. Together, the partners can provide a broader range of integrated home-based services, including physical therapy, chronic disease management and hospice care. Over time, the organizations plan to expand the number of available services.
The seeds of the eventual affiliation were planted when the leaders of BBH and TMH met to discuss the establishment of a new hospice inpatient unit within the hospital. The unit, the First Commerce Center for Compassionate Care (FCCCC), is now up and running.
During those negotiations, current Big Bend Hospice CEO Bill Wertman and the health system’s board chair, Mark O’Bryant, began to discuss other ways the two organizations could work together.
Beyond transitional care, the affiliates are in discussions about integrating some primary care and possibly acute care in the home, according to Wood.
“We just really started brainstorming about what the possibilities were. Through Mark O’Bryant and Bill’s vision, they said, ‘Hey, let’s take some of the assets, some of the home-based care delivery or non-hospital acute care and bring them together,’” Wood said. “This really kind of formed the concept for us ultimately affiliating last year and then moving towards this type of continuum that we’re looking to start putting together. We’re starting to integrate it through various means: clinical integration, financial integration, starting with the ACO REACH model, really taking the two organizations and expanding the capabilities in the home.”
