The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced that a new initiative called “Patient-Centered Community Care” (PCCC) will provide greater access to quality healthcare. Under PCCC, VA medical centers will be able to purchase non-VA medical care for veterans through contracted medical providers when they cannot readily provide the needed care due to geographic inaccessibility or limited capacity.
In total, the VA has awarded two contracts under PCCC, one to Health Net Federal Services LLC and another to TriWest Healthcare Alliance Corp. These companies will set up networks in six regions covering the entire country. The VA expects to have these regional contract networks available to their medical centers by the spring of 2014. The awarded contracts are estimated at $9.4 billion and include one base year and four option years.
The contracts will benefit veteran and the VA since standardized health care quality metrics will exist, medical documentation will be returned in a timely manner, fixed rates for services across the board will lower costs, provide access to care for all veterans, and provide improved tracking and reporting of non-VA medical care expenditures over traditional non-VA medical care services.
“TriWest is looking forward to serving our nation’s heroes and partnering with the VA to enhance access to care for veterans in 28 states,” said TriWest CEO and President, David J. McIntyre, Jr. “We have proven expertise in providing access to quality healthcare and pride ourselves on delivering best-in-class customer service to our nation’s veterans, even in the most rural areas.”