Making equitable care a priority

Everyone deserves access to quality health care.

That belief propelled Massachusetts’ largest health plan to make a major commitment to ensuring high-value, high-quality, equitable care for its 2.9 million members and beyond by creating payment contracts that reward clinicians for eliminating racial and ethnic inequities in care.

Tufts Medicine is now part of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts’ pay-for-equity financial payment model, the first in the state and among the first in the nation.

The organization joins four other leading health systems that signed the agreements in December 2022: Steward Healthcare Network, Beth Israel Lahey Health, Mass General Brigham and Boston Accountable Care Organization, Inc., which is part of Boston Medical Center.

Now, 53% of Blue Cross' Massachusetts members receive care from clinicians taking part in these equity-focused value-based agreements.

"By engaging another of our state's large health systems in these payment contracts, we're one step closer to a more affordable, equitable health care system for our members."

More than 300,000 people receive care from the Tufts Medicine Integrated Network. As part of its agreement with Blue Cross, Tufts Medicine will focus on reducing inequities in colorectal cancer screenings, diabetes care, hypertension and child and adolescent well-care visits.

“Health equity is central to everything we do,” said Dr. Julie Tishler, a primary care physician at Tufts Medical Center and director of quality for primary care Boston.

For example, Tishler said the agreement will help Tufts Medicine broaden existing efforts to screen families for social needs during well-child visits and connect them with community resources, offer patients blood pressure cuffs and information in multiple languages about how to manage their high blood pressure, and provide home stool-based tests for colorectal cancer screening coupled with patient outreach and education in multiple languages.

A commitment to health equity

In addition to signing agreements with health systems that pay for equity in care, Blue Cross gathers and publishes data each year for more than 1.2 million of its commercial Massachusetts members that reveals racial and ethnic inequities in many areas of patient care, and it shares this data with health systems to drive improvement.

The health plan also has funded $25 million in Institute for Healthcare Improvement grants to support physician practices and hospitals in their efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic inequities in care and share learning across institutions.

"Like Blue Cross, Tufts Medicine is committed to improving equity and eliminating racial and ethnic inequities in care," said Dr. Mark Friedberg, senior vice president, performance measurement & improvement at Blue Cross. "We're delighted to be partnering with another prominent health care system in Massachusetts as we work toward making measurable improvements in health equity."