Walgreens Health and Managed Care Company Buckeye Health Plan Join Forces | Healthcare Innovation

According to a June 21 press release, Walgreens Health—a division of Walgreens Boots Alliance—announced its partnership with Ohio-based managed care company Buckeye Health Plan. The collaboration aims to bring health and wellness services to Medicaid members in five northeast Ohio neighborhood locations this summer. Buckeye Health Plan is the third payer to partner with Walgreens Health to launch Walgreens Health Corner locations. Walgreens Health Corner provides individuals with access to health advisors, skilled workers with clinical backgrounds like pharmacists and registered nurses, for in-store health counsel, as well as support and services on the Walgreens Health Corner app

The release states that “With additional partners in California and New Jersey across commercial and Medicare plan patient populations respectively, Walgreens Health is now contracted to serve more than 2.27 million patients. By the end of 2022, the number of current Walgreens Health Corners will expand from 55 to approximately 100 locations, which include the additional five in Ohio.”

That said, “Services that will be offered at Walgreens Health Corner locations range from preventive care and wellness checks to assistance with managing chronic conditions and include:

The release adds that the services will be available at no extra cost to eligible Buckeye Health Plan members in northeast Ohio.

“This new collaboration follows a successful Walgreens Pharmacy pilot program launched with Buckeye Health Plan in 2021 to support asthma and COPD patients as part of a multi-phased approach to support comprehensive expanded clinical services,” the release explains. “Through the pilot, Walgreens pharmacists counseled patients on how to use their inhalers, provided proactive outreach to non-adherent patients, and used predictive modeling to reach out to people at high risk for becoming non adherent. To date, more than 1,900 pharmacist consultations have been completed.”

Due to recent legislative changes in the state, Buckeye Health Plan was one of the first payers to reimburse pharmacists for these services in Ohio, according to the release. This was the first expanded disease state management pilot for asthma/COPD collaborating with a payer to include pediatric and adult Managed Medicaid, Medicare, and Health Exchange patients. Lessons learned from the pilot will be applied to future programs between Walgreens and Buckeye Health.

Steve Province, CEO of Buckeye Health Plan was quoted in the release saying that “This collaboration opens the door to highly personalized, quality care given by trusted local healthcare professionals. It’s a major innovation that perfectly aligns with Buckeye’s vision to transform the health of the community, one person at a time.”