After a “rigorous” selection process, The Boeing Company has selected MemorialCare Health System to provide a “first-of-its-kind” health plan for nearly all of its Southern California employees and their families – about 37,000 people.

 

According to a statement from MemorialCare, the plan offers about 15,000 employees and their 22,000 dependents access to in-network primary care without copayments, total coverage for all generic drug prescriptions and the liberty to choose specialists within their network without a referral.

 

The MemorialCare Health Alliance Accountable Care Organization health plan is designed around the concept of prevention-based care: maintaining the health of patients through early, evidence-based diagnoses and treatments of underlying health problems to prevent hospitalization. According to a news release from MemorialCare Health System, this approach was “key to Boeing’s decision” to choose its plan over those of other health care organizations.

 

“Creating these partnerships is one of the innovative ways we are managing our health care programs to improve quality and efficiency,” Jeff White, Boeing’s director of health care strategy and policy, said in the MemorialCare statement. “This approach is in keeping with Boeing’s strategy to help reshape how health care is delivered by offering options that provide a higher level of coordinated, personal care.”

 

White also stated that MemorialCare has “a long track record of health care leadership and innovation in Southern California, as well as a strong market presence.”

 

Boeing employees and their dependents now have access to a network of nine hospitals, more than 2,400 primary care and specialty providers, and 71 community based ambulatory centers for surgery, imaging, urgent care, dialysis and other services.

 

To create a broad and accessible network for patients, MemorialCare partnered with Torrance Memorial Health System, UC Irvine Health, PIH Health and several medical groups in addition to “hundreds of independent physicians.”