Risant to add Cone Health to value-based system

Greensboro, North Carolina-based Cone Health is set to become the second provider to join Risant Health, a new value-based care organization created by Kaiser Foundation Hospitals.

The health systems signed a definitive agreement, according to a June 21st announcement, under which Cone Health will become part of the new organization, pending regulatory approvals. Risant acquired Pennsylvania-based Geisinger earlier this year in the organization’s first deal to create a value-based system of providers across the country.

Risant is a nonprofit, charitable organization backed by Kaiser with the goal of joining “like-minded organizations” to “increase access to value-based care and coverage, and raise the bar for approaches that bring the best health outcomes.” The organization plans to acquire up to six community-based health systems over the next five years to achieve those goals.

Financial details of Risant’s latest acquisition are scant. However, the announcement said that Cone Health would operate independently as a regional health system. The health system would maintain its brand, name and mission, and its own board, CEO and leadership team. It would also continue to work with its payer, provider and physician partners.

“Cone Health customers will see the same doctors, the same nurses and the same staff in the same locations they do today. We do not anticipate changes in the types of care we provide as a result of becoming part of Risant Health,” Cone Health president and CEO, Mary Jo Cagle, MD, said in the announcement.

Cone Health currently serves over half a million people in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina, employing more than 13,000 employees and 700 physicians. The health system also partners with about 1,800 physicians. Cone Health operates four acute care hospitals, a behavioral health facility, an accountable care organization and a health plan. Geisinger similarly has an accountable care organization and its own health plan.

“Cone Health’s impressive work for decades in moving value-based care forward aligns so well with Risant Health’s vision for the future of health care,” Risant Health CEO, Dr. Jaewon Ryu, JD, said in the announcement. “Their longstanding success and deep commitment to providing high-quality care to North Carolina communities make them an ideal fit to become a part of Risant Health. We will work together to share our industry-leading expertise and innovation to expand access to value-based care to more people in the communities we serve.”

Risant plans to share Kaiser’s and Geisinger’s value-based care learnings with Cone Health through the acquisition, including their care delivery and financing model that “improves health and increases access to affordable care in the community through evidence-based care, and a commitment to equity, simplicity and aligned incentives.”

“Risant Health refuses to accept that fragmented, episodic, fee-for-service care should define the future of health care,” said Greg Adams, chair of the Risant board of directors. “Risant Health has put a stake in the ground that care focused on evidence, equity, population health and improved outcomes must be the future of health care. Models like that of Kaiser Permanente, Cone Health and Geisinger will help make that possible.”

When the deal will close is unknown. The acquisition will face regulatory hurdles and customary closing conditions.