Aurora Health Offers Employers a Savings Guarantee

"We are guaranteeing a PMPM trend line and an experience over a three-year period that is better than what the current employers' experience would be. We've seen generally it as low as 7%. On smaller employers that have a lot of care that hasn't been organized we've been as high as 13%," Klein says. "We say to the employer, integrated care is cost effective and high quality and if they are not buying integrated care currently we think there is an opportunity to save money and increase the quality of the care delivered."

The Aurora Accountable Care Network has more than 1,500 physicians, 15 hospitals, and 160 clinics in eastern Wisconsin and northern Illinois and uses system-wide electronic medical records and real-time claims analysis. Plan members will have care managers who schedule appointments, help patients contact physicians, and coordinate follow up care.

Klein says he's not aware of any other integrated care models in the United States that offer guaranteed savings. But he says Aurora and other accountable care networks understand that the only way to slow the staggering increase in healthcare costs is to coordinate care to achieve better outcomes.

"The idea that healthcare organizations in the future are going to be taking that responsibility is clear," he says.