(Press Release)
CHICAGO – United Eye Care Providers (UECP) announced that it has agreed to enter into a partnership with Professional Eyecare Resource Co-operative (PERC) and iCare Health Solutions (iCare) in order to offer their members group purchasing power and the necessary infrastructure to attract additional payers.
“Our goal was to create a working relationship with all the major carriers, build a stronger acceptance of optometrists in the medical community, and expand that concept to all optometrists in Illinois,” says Dr. Peterson, president of United Eye Care Providers. “In order to reach that goal, our board recognized that we needed partners with and expertise in aggregating our purchasing power for sustainability and healthcare to meet the requirements of a very sophisticated and complicated healthcare delivery market.”
PERC allow IPAs and other groups of independent doctors to keep their identity by providing administrative support, educational programs and the purchasing power of a large doctor alliance group. Additionally, PERC will use its resources to help grow the UECP network throughout the state of Illinois. “Our doctor alliance group perfectly aligns both functionally and structurally with the independent eyecare providers (ECP) whose strategy is to form local networks or IPAs,” says Dr. David Golden, president of PERC.
iCare Health Solutions is a wholly owned third-party administrator (TPA) which provides various administrative capabilities (e.g., claims adjudication, credentialing, utilization management, provider relations), a health effectiveness data and information set (HEDIS) outreach program, as well as mobile and tele-medicine screening services. “We are doctor-owned, patient-focused, and guided by a fundamental purpose to create a better healthcare delivery system where integration and collaboration drive better outcomes,” says Tamara Bruns, VP of strategic alliances for iCare Health Solutions.
“We have an immense vision, and a significant amount of work ahead of us, but our partnerships with PERC and iCare Health Solutions are the necessary building blocks to compete and move independent ECPs forward,” added Dr. Peterson.
For more information, visit uecp.com.