The creation of Tandigm Health can be traced back to an informal meeting at the Jersey Shore luncheonette more than two years ago. The joint venture was established Tuesday by Independence Blue Cross and California-based HealthCare Partners. Tandigm Health was created with a goal of improving the quality, and lowering the cost, of health-care delivery in the region.
Dan Hilferty, president and CEO of IBC, said several years ago he was talking with Dr. Steven Udvarhelyi — the Philadelphia health insurer’s executive vice president of health services and chief strategy officer — about the future of health care and how they needed to focus more on primary-care doctors. Seeking input from somebody outside the company, Hilferty contacted Dr. Anthony Coletta, a surgeon who served as chief medical officer for Holy Redeemer Health System, helped create Renaissance Medical Management Co.
"We agreed to meet at Ozzie’s in Longport,” Hilferty said. “He got all dressed up. I rode my bike over there. I was in a T-shirt and flip-flops. We basically shared our dreams about health-care.”
Hilferty and Coletta found they had similar visions about creating a model that would provide more support to primary-care practices and help those doctors better manage care of patients with chronic health conditions like diabetes and congestive heart failure. Payments, they envisioned, would be based not on how many tests or procedures a doctor performed, but on how well they provided quality care and lower costs to populations of patients. Read more about this story on PBJ.com
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