The Alliance (health care)

The Alliance is a not-for-profit health care purchasing cooperative based in Madison, Wisconsin, United States comprising 200 employers that self-fund their health benefits. Members currently provide coverage to nearly 90,000 people in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

Originally known as the Employer Health Care Alliance Cooperative, it was founded in 1990 by seven businesses that sought greater control over health-benefit costs. Founding members were CUNA Mutual Insurance Group, Rayovac Corporation, Webcrafters Inc., Wisconsin Auto & Truck Dealers Association, American Family Insurance Group, Oscar Mayer Foods Corporation, and Wisconsin Bell Inc. The Alliance bargains with hospitals, physicians and medical groups in an attempt to control healthcare costs and improve quality.

Quality Control Efforts

In 2013, The Alliance announced the development of the QualityPath initiative. The intent of the program is to use The Alliance’s collective purchasing power to reward high-value health-care providers by encouraging members to go to medical providers that meet quality and cost criteria.

In 2004, The Alliance launched a pay-for-performance pilot program, which provides financial incentives to physicians, hospitals, and medical groups for providing high quality care. The program considers such factors as mortality, C-section rates, pneumonia treatment and diabetes control. The Alliance’s QualityCounts report measures healthcare providers’ performances in areas including overall care, maternity care and cardiac care. The report indicates the frequency of mistakes, complications and deaths and rates each hospital based on performance in specific areas. The report also looks at the cost of hospital inpatient care and of outpatient tests and procedures.

Education

The organization’s Alliance Learning Circles, its annual meeting and seminar, hosts speakers on health-industry related topics. Recent speakers have included Shannon Brownlee, author of the book Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine is Making Us Sicker and Poorer.