SCAN Health Plan has teamed up with Astrana Health, a value-based care company, to create a Medicare Advantage plan tailored to the Asian older adult population, the companies announced Tuesday.
The new plan is called SCAN Allied and will launch in 2025. It will be available in California’s Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, though the insurer plans to expand in the future. In total, SCAN has more than 277,000 members across California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas.
SCAN Allied is the “brainchild” of a 10-year value-based care partnership SCAN Health Plan announced with Astrana Health (previously ApolloMed) last year, said Dr. Sachin Jain, CEO of SCAN. Members of SCAN Allied will receive all the typical Medicare benefits provided in all of SCAN’s plans, as well as access to a network of culturally competent providers, specialists and pharmacies from Astrana Health. The company enables healthcare providers to engage in value-based care and has a network of over 10,000 healthcare providers, including primary care physicians, hospitalists, specialists, cardiology, oncology and psychiatry.
Allied members will also receive $0 premiums; unlimited acupuncture; and flexible dental, grocery and fitness allowances.
Astrana Health is uniquely positioned to serve the older Asian adult community, according to Chan Basho, the company’s CFO and COO. More than 75% of its patient population is Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) or Black/African American, and 90% of its workforce identifies as Latino, AAPI, or Black/African American.
“We’ve developed our care management programs with a lens of understanding and drawing from the diverse healthcare and social experiences of our Astrana Health team, our provider networks, and our patients,” Basho said in an email. “For example, we have differentially built cardiology and gastroenterology networks to address the higher incidence rates of congestive heart failure and stomach-related cancers among the AAPI population. We believe that access to Astrana Health’s culturally aligned care management programs, paired with SCAN’s tailored products and benefits, will improve the healthcare outcomes of our communities.”
The launch of SCAN Allied comes after several other population-specific health plans created by SCAN. Last year, the insurer announced SCAN Inspired, a women-focused MA plan, which now has a couple hundred enrollees, according to Jain. And about two years ago, the insurer launched SCAN Affirm, a Medicare Advantage plan geared toward LGBTQ+ older adults, which now has about 1,000 members. It’s important to note though that while these plans are tailored to specific groups, anyone can enroll.
“A straight person can enroll in Affirm. A man can enroll in Inspired and a non-Asian person can enroll in this new Allied product,” Jain said. “We want to make everything available to everyone, but I think one of the real distinct benefits of the MA program that doesn’t get discussed enough in federal policy discourse about Medicare Advantage is the fact that it enables the kind of customization that we’re talking about today.”
In addition to launching SCAN Allied, SCAN also announced new special needs plan offerings that include a grocery allowance in partnership with Instacart, an enhanced over-the-counter allowance and unlimited virtual health for urgent care and behavioral health needs.
Photo: designer491, Getty Images
