Anthem, Kroger Health Partner To Offer Medicare Advantage Plans

Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Anthem) and Kroger Health have announced that they will be partnering to offer a Medicare Advantage plan in 2022, an Anthem spokesperson told HealthPayerIntelligence in an email.

“These plans would bring together the strengths of the two organizations to give Medicare-eligible individuals access to high-quality, innovative healthcare services and benefits that would help individuals live healthier lives,” the Anthem spokesperson shared with HealthPayerIntelligence.

The Medicare Advantage plan will be offered in four regions, primarily in the midwest and on the east coast: Atlanta, GA; Louisville, KY; Cincinnati, OH; and southern Virginia.

From the payer’s end, the partnership will leverage Anthem’s experience with provider networks and membership. Meanwhile, the healthcare branch of a major retail company—The Kroger Co.—will offer its expertise in the member’s shopping and healthcare journey.

Kroger Health ranked third among retail companies in 2018 based on revenue, trailing behind Amazon.com with over $119 billion in revenue, according to the National Retail Federation. However, another strength it may add to this partnership is that it is strategically positioned to offer healthcare services to many communities, given the company’s reach.

According to its website, Kroger Health boasts more than 2,300 pharmacy sites as well as almost a dozen specialty pharmacies. These sites along with the company’s 200 clinics are run by 22,000 healthcare providers of various types. Altogether, Kroger Health’s population of consumers exceeds 13 million individuals.

The retail company demonstrated its reach in 2021 with its vaccine drive. As of June 3, 2021, the company had administered 4.7 million coronavirus vaccines.

“We look forward to working with Kroger Health in providing tools and resources to make healthcare simple, affordable, and accessible and, ultimately, helping Medicare-eligible individuals live their best lives,” said Elena McFann, president of Medicare business at Anthem.

Anthem continues to be one of the largest health insurers in the nation, based on membership size. 

In 2021, the company has the second-highest number of members with almost 40 million lives covered surpassed only by UnitedHealthcare, according to ValuePenguin and Lending Tree’s statistics. Anthem also holds the largest portion of market share at 11 percent.

Anthem ranked in fifteenth place in the nation for employer response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a Forbes and JustCapital ranking in December 2020. The payer directed investments towards coronavirus relief and recovery—including two months’ of the chief executive officer’s salary—, 80 hours of paid leave for employees, and more.

More recently, the payer has been working to expand its home healthcare capabilities. In March 2021, Anthem announced that it planned to acquire myNEXUS and finalized the deal in April 2021.

The payer has also been focusing on cutting healthcare spending. In late 2020, Anthem introduced an app powered by artificial intelligence to help reduce healthcare spending among employer-sponsored health plans in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

The payer embedded its app into its exclusive provider organization (EPO) health plan design. The EPO provided a more narrow provider network and saved employers 10 to 25 percent over the area’s preferred provider organizations. In tandem with this, the app sought to develop a more personal connection with providers as members searched for a new provider digitally.

Along with these efforts, Anthem—along with the rest of the payer industry—has been working towards greater interoperability and compliance with the new interoperability regulations. 

Even for a company that has been honing its interoperability strategy for the past seven to eight years like Anthem, the coronavirus pandemic highlighted barriers to interoperability. But, as an Anthem leader told HealthPayerIntelligence, achieving interoperability will help accomplish one of Anthem’s ultimate goals: simplifying healthcare for the consumer.

This same mindset seems to be driving the upcoming partnership with Kroger Health.

“Our two organizations share the goals of improving access to cost-effective care, driving transformative improvement to health outcomes, and simplifying the healthcare experience,” said McFann.

The partners will share more details on the Medicare Advantage health plans closer to Medicare open enrollment for 2022.