Value-based primary care company Cityblock is deepening its presence with Medicaid members in North Carolina through a new partnership with Alliance Health, the companies announced Wednesday.
New York City-based Cityblock offers clinical care, behavioral health care and social care in patients’ homes, virtually and in community-based clinics. It primarily serves Medicaid members across seven states. Morrisville, North Carolina-based Alliance Health is a public managed care organization with about 137,000 Medicaid members across Cumberland, Durham, Harnett, Johnston, Mecklenburg, Orange and Wake counties.
Through the partnership — which launched in Mecklenburg, Cumberland and Wake counties on July 1— Cityblock will offer medical and behavioral health services to members with serious mental illness or substance use disorder in Alliance Health’s Behavioral Health and Intellectual/Development Disability Tailored Plan. These members will have access to Cityblock’s primary care and behavioral health services virtually, in the home and at Cityblock clinics. They’ll also receive a care team that includes primary care providers, behavioral health specialists, community health partners, nurse care managers and pharmacy navigators.
“We have a very integrated care team that is meant to be there to navigate and assist our patients in receiving services not just within our own walls, but throughout the network that Alliance also builds,” said Dr. Kameron Matthews, chief health officer of Cityblock, in an interview.
This partnership is needed for Alliance’s members, according to Sean Schreiber, chief operating officer of the company.
“Alliance Tailored Plan members have unique care needs across multiple domains, and many either do not receive routine primary care or receive it without a consistent provider,” Schreiber said in an email. “Cityblock’s approach that includes significant outreach and engagement efforts, bringing care outside of office settings, and addressing nonmedical drivers of health aligns tightly to Alliance’s approach to ensuring that our members can access the specialized care they need.”
Alliance Health and Cityblock have a value-based contract tied to reducing the cost of care and quality metrics like diabetes, hypertension and breast cancer screening, Matthews said. This is Alliance Health’s first shared risk arrangement, according to the announcement.
The partnership comes after North Carolina recently expanded Medicaid in December of 2023. Cityblock is starting to take on more patients who were previously uninsured, Matthews said.
Some of these new beneficiaries “potentially have some deferred diagnoses, deferred chronic disease management if they are not otherwise in an established primary care relationship. There’s some lift that we have to take as they come on board.”
In regards to the Alliance Health partnership, Matthews said she hopes Cityblock can be a regular source of care for these patients.
“They need the ability to trust healthcare,” she said. “At a population level, we really hope to increase their engagement with us and with Alliance’s other clinical partners so that we can address their health outcomes. We’re, of course, really motivated through the business arrangement to decrease cost. That is really hinged on improving each and every person’s experience and trust. So really, before we even initiate clinical care and lean on whatever tools we have in our belt to seek out better clinical outcomes, we really want to improve trust and engagement.”
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