Minnetonka-based Medica plans to start courting business from health systems across the country that want to develop insurance policies for their regional markets, and will offer access to the Mayo Clinic for complex care as part of the deal.
The initiative announced Thursday would let Medica partner with health care systems that increasingly are looking to create "accountable care organizations" where insurers and care providers share the financial risks and rewards of financing care for large groups of people.
For Medica, it's another example of how the health insurer is trying to grow outside Minnesota at a time when insurance giant UnitedHealthcare, which also is based in Minnetonka, is trying to expand within the state's health plan market.
"We will go to basically new markets, and we will work with local delivery systems and bring a solution to that market," said John Naylor, the Medica chief executive, in an interview. "Members in that market would be able to access Mayo for serious and complex care."
Medica and Rochester-based Mayo Clinic did not release financial terms.
Mayo Clinic is not participating on the insurance side of the arrangements that Medica would negotiate with regional health care systems, said Dennis Dahlen, the chief financial officer at Mayo Clinic, in an interview.
Whereas Minneapolis-based Allina Health System and national insurer Aetna have jointly invested in a new company that will sell coverage in the Twin Cities, Mayo Clinic is not an equity holder in any of the collaborations that Medica would negotiate with regional health care systems.
"Having Mayo as a provider as part of the network for specialty and complex care opens the playing field a bit to the kind of provider networks and organizations that Medica can work with in the local markets," Dahlen said. "They don't have to have an academic medical center presence, for example, to do the complex oncology and orthopedics or whatever else. We can provide that."
