Hackensack Meridian Health and Amazon’s One Medical intend to open 20 primary care clinics throughout New Jersey over the next decade.
The partnership announced Tuesday between the nonprofit New Jersey health system and One Medical, which provides virtual and brick-and-mortar primary care services to commercially insured patients for an annual membership fee, expands One Medical’s health system affiliate network.
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One Medical is affiliated with more than a dozen health systems, including Charlotte, North Carolina-based Advocate Health, Boston-based Mass General Brigham, Renton, Washington-based Providence and Seattle-based Virginia Mason Franciscan Health. Most of the partnerships include commitments to build clinics and set up referral networks between One Medical primary care physicians and health system specialists.
Hackensack and One Medical will fund the co-branded clinics, which will join Hackensack’s clinically integrated network and be managed and staffed by One Medical. Terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
One Medical gives Edison, New Jersey-based Hackensack access to a demographic that historically has been hard to reach: a predominantly young and mostly healthy population that often does not have a primary care physician. Also, Hackensack could tap into thousands of employers affiliated with One Medical, which Amazon acquired in February for $3.9 billion.
“This is a way to bring a whole new population into a primary care network,” said Dr. Daniel Varga, chief physician executive of Hackensack. “This also creates a new access node for our continuum of care.”
One Medical has its own IT platform, but it will integrate with Hackensack’s Epic electronic health record, ideally improving care transitions, Varga said.
The first clinic is scheduled to open by early 2025. Clinic locations are still being determined.
“So many people in New Jersey don’t have a primary care physician. We need to increase the number of primary care physicians who are affiliated with our medical group,” Hackensack CEO Robert Garrett said. “Otherwise, people end up in the emergency department and do not get access to the right care or preventative care.”
Hackensack’s clinically integrated network participates in several risk-based contracts, including the Medicare shared savings program and the Medicare Advantage plan Braven Health, co-operated by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, Hackensack and West Orange, New Jersey-based RWJBarnabas Health. Hackensack and One Medical are still discussing how One Medical could participate in those alternative payment models, executives said.