Duke, Coventry form patient-centered partnership

Duke University Health System and Coventry Health Care of the Carolinas announced a health benefit plan for employers that will be powered primarily by Duke’s network of primary and specialty-care physicians.

The “Carelink-Duke Medical Home” plan is built on the patient-centered medical home, a health-care approach in which a network of providers uses electronic medical records to facilitate delivery of coordinated, evidence-based care to patients, according to Duke.

Proponents of this kind of model have said it will reduce health-care costs because one set of providers treats all the patient’s health-care problems in a more coordinated effort, eliminating redundancies in diagnostics and treatments.

The new plan will be available in Durham, Alamance, Orange, Granville, Person, Vance and Wake counties, offering employers in these communities a way to obtain health-care coverage, hopefully at a lower cost. In all, the plan’s network will include nine hospitals, more than 250 primary-care and more than 650 specialty-care practice locations.