About OneCare Vermont

OneCare Vermont Accountable Care Organization, LLC is a joint venture established by The University of Vermont Medical Center Inc. and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center

OneCare is an accountable care organization, led by health care providers.

Hospitals, doctors, health partners, social service partners, and other providers collaborate together for better health outcomes. OneCare partners with these providers, and then providers care for patients directly. Providers choose to work in independent practices or in hospitals, and those organizations choose to work with OneCare. By being part of OneCare, providers can:

Illustration Showing a Diverse Group of Health Care Practictioners and Providers

By being part of OneCare, providers can:

  • Create a consistent patient experience through high-quality care across settings
  • Invest in population health
  • See how health outcomes are changing in their community
  • Work together to be accountable for cost and quality of care
  • Get incentives for better health outcomes
  • Benefit from stable payments to care for patients, especially during uncertain times
  • Receive health education
  • Share data, resources, and best practices
  • Reduce administrative burden

See the current list of participants (doctors, hospitals, etc.)

OneCare works to improve the health of Vermonters.

What does OneCare do?

For a printable version of what OneCare does, click here to download our ACO 101 informational handout. (PDF).

1. Improves Health Care for Vermonters

Health care providers in OneCare coordinate across organizations and share resources and data. They focus on connecting patients to primary care, coordinating care for patients, and managing chronic illness. The goal is to help Vermonters become healthier — not just care for them when they are sick.

2. Supports Patient Health Care Choices

You, your doctor, and your insurance company work together to ensure you receive the health care you need. Your health benefits and coverage stay the same, and OneCare does not limit health care providers or number of visits.

3. Works to Stabilize Health Care Costs

Health care costs are too high. Vermont is leading an effort to change the way health care is paid for or incentivized: value over volume. OneCare works with insurance companies to reward providers for wellness, not illness. Instead of paying for each test and procedure, OneCare pays doctors a flat amount to care for patients. Over time, these changes should lower health care costs for Vermont.

4. Uses Data to Improve Health

OneCare gives doctors data, resources, and tools to improve patient health. By sharing information and working together, providers can do even more to give the best care to Vermonters.

Overall, how will Vermonters benefit from OneCare?

A very diverse group of people of varying ages, genders, and backgrounds

OneCare helps identify Vermonters whose health may be at risk. Providers can reach out to people who could benefit from care coordination. Providers work together to help patients find resources and services that support their health goals.

Here’s a real example of how this works.

Tom’s* Story:

  • Tom is a Vermonter with complex, chronic medical needs. Tom was making multiple trips to the emergency department for health needs that could have been managed through coordinated care.
  • OneCare data analysis identified Tom as a high risk individual and shared this information with his health care providers. They asked Tom if he would like some additional support to help him manage his care. Tom agreed, and now his care coordination team includes a primary care doctor, a cardiologist, a counselor, and a social worker.
  • The team reached out to Tom to set health goals and create a plan to help meet his needs.
  • Care coordination makes sure all Tom’s providers are talking to each other and looking at many things that impact Tom’s health like housing, transportation, and access to healthy food. This cuts down on duplication of expensive tests and connects Tom with important services in his community.
  • Tom’s care team used OneCare’s nationally recognized care coordination model. OneCare provides training for care teams throughout the state and tools to help providers talk to each other about Tom’s health goals.

*Name changed to protect privacy.

Illustration of health care providers taking care of Tom, a Vermonter with multiple chronic issues

Tom’s Results after One Year of Care Coordination

An illustration of Tom laying in a hospital bed attended to by health care providers

Tom’s visits to emergency department visits decreased from six to zero.

An illustration of Tom having a conversation with a health care provider about his chronic conditions and management

Tom saw his doctor more. Primary care physician visits increased from zero to five.

An illustration of a downward sloping arrow over a pile of money - representing decreasing health care costs for Tom

Health care costs for Tom significantly decreased, by 60%, from $63K to $25K

How will you personally be affected by OneCare?

1. Connection with Your Doctor

OneCare works with your provider to help you stay healthy, avoid trips to the emergency room, and in some cases, supports your health goals with a care coordination team. Your doctor also focuses on wellness and check-ups to improve your health and to help prevent you from becoming ill.

2. Health in Your Community

Our prevention programs, such as RiseVT, partner with your community to make the healthy choice the easy choice, by working on issues like affordable housing, walkable towns, and access to healthy food.

The Quadruple Aim

An accountable care organization strives to make improvements in these four areas in order to achieve high value health care delivery.

A graphic showing a family, to represent the concept of enhancing the patient experience in an accountable care organization

Enhancing the Patient Experience

A graphic showing a dollar sign in front of a financial chart, to represent the concept of controlling health care costs in an accountable care organization

Stabilizing Health Care Costs

A graphic showing a healthy heart beat, to represent the concept of healthier Vermonters in an accountable care organization

Improving the Health of Vermonters

A graphic showing a simplified group of doctors and health care providers, to represent the concept of supporting health care providers in an accountable care organization

Supporting Health Care Providers

The 2020 OneCare Community

Vermonters cumulatively covered by:
Medicaid  |  Medicare  |  Commercial  |  Self-Insured

Hospitals

Primary Care Practices

Specialty Care Practices

Federally Qualified Health Centers

Individual Providers

Skilled Nursing Facilities

Home Health Agencies

Designated Agencies for Mental Health & Substance Use

Area Agencies on Aging

Regional Housing Authorities (SASH)

ABOUT

OneCare Vermont

OneCare Vermont is a provider-led Accountable Care Organization working to improve the health of Vermonters and lower health care costs through Vermont’s All Payer ACO Model. Click here to learn more about Vermont’s All Payer ACO Model. OneCare partners with health insurance companies, hospitals, independent medical practices, and community collaborators to offer programs that pay for positive outcomes and health care activities. OneCare gives doctors and other providers access to data, resources, and tools to improve patient health. Health care providers participating in OneCare pool resources and expertise to help Vermonters become healthier and stay healthier, and focus on improving access to primary care, reducing deaths from suicide and drug overdose, and managing chronic illnesses. By sharing information and working together, providers can do even more to deliver the best care to patients.

As a provider-led organization, OneCare is not eligible for non-profit status since Vermont law does not allow non-profits to have more than 49% of its Board financially interested. In addition, Accountable Care Organization (ACO) regulations require that 75% of its Board includes provider representatives and providers who can receive savings and funding from the ACO. To comply with Vermont law and ACO regulations, OneCare is a limited liability corporation (LLC).

A visual map of the state of Vermont segmented into its counties, showing the location of participating hospitals as well as the two founding hospitals - University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, Vermont and Dartmouth-Hitchcock in Lebanon, New Hampshire.

Although OneCare is an LLC, it is not operated to make profits. OneCare is provider-led and operates in alignment with the non-profit missions of its founders and the many providers who participate. In addition, OneCare budgets to break even. Surpluses are either distributed to network providers who have met the standards for delivering high quality care or are added to reserves required by regulators.

Learn more about the value of OneCare Vermont.

Download the Summary of Vermont’s All-Payer ACO Model and OneCare (PDF).

OUR

Mission

OneCare Vermont, as a statewide population health organization, will enhance the effectiveness of patient- and family-centered care for all Vermonters.

We are dedicated to optimizing the delivery of care in order to improve outcomes and patient experience in support of a sustainable health care system under a predictable rate of growth.