MSK Provider, HOPCo, Enters Florida via Provider Network Solutions

Phoenix, Arizona-based Healthcare Outcomes Performance Company (HOPCo) and Miami, Florida-based Provider Network Solutions (PNS) have announced a partnership to establish a joint venture, HOPCo Network Solutions.

Provider Network Solutions provides specialty management services organization and third-party administrative services. According to PNS, the company “connects payors with networks of more than 1,100 orthopedic, pain management, and podiatry providers, managing over 1.8 million fully insured MSK [musculoskeletal] lives.”

HOPCo is a leading healthcare management company. Under the agreement, HOPCo Network Solutions will acquire all Provider Network Solutions musculoskeletal value-based care networks throughout Florida.

Provider Network Solutions Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Jose Pelayo, D.C. explained, “Over the past 25 years, PNS has grown substantially thanks to the value we have been able to deliver to payors, providers, and the community.”

Dr. Pelayo continued, “With our growth, we needed a partner with experience and expertise in managing more comprehensive risk-based models. That made HOPCo our natural choice.”

Under the partnership, Dr. Pelayo’s team will remain with the new joint venture to continue to ensure the growth of the musculoskeletal networks. Provider Network Solutions President and Chief Strategy Officer Thinh Tran, M.D., MBA, will now serve as HOPCo Network Solutions CEO. Additionally, HOPCo EVP of Growth and Network Strategies Jordan McInerney will take on the role HOPCo Network Solutions COO.

HOPCo President and Chief Transformation Officer Wael Barsoum, M.D. said, “The PNS team has a well-built and innovative model that, like HOPCo, has proven to align payors and providers around value and outcomes.”

Dr. Barsoum continued, “With this important milestone, HOPCo will be enhancing its offerings to payors and providers across the region and accelerating the adoption of additional, comprehensive MSK value-based care programs that improve patient outcomes and drive savings.”

OTW spoke with Rina C. Vertes, FSA, MAAA, President, Value-Based Care (VBC) Solutions at HOPCo, about the partnership’s plans to enhance offerings to payors and accelerate the adoption of programs that improve patient outcomes and drive savings. Vertes explained, “HOPCo Network Solutions will leverage the proprietary medical economics, claims analytics, quality reporting, network management infrastructure and digital physician/patient engagement platforms that HOPCo has deployed to power its successful MSK VBC and population health programs nationally.”

Vertes continued, “Combined with PNS’s successful VBC initiatives, payor relationships and third-party administrator infrastructure, HOPCo Network Solutions will deploy new programs and enhance existing programs with validated models that further align MSK and non-MSK physicians, improve patient experience and outcomes far beyond episode of care bundles, incorporate improvements in MSK health equity while encompassing larger populations of patients and, as has been proven by HOPCo in its other MSK population health and VBC programs across the country, significantly bend the cost curve on the total cost of MSK care.”