Frisco-based Healthcare Highways, an innovative PPO network and health plan partner, has added Jack Martin, the founder of Public Strategies Inc., and Carlos Zaffirini, president of Adelanto Healthcare Ventures, to its board of directors as the company said it continues to expand already strong partnerships in the Austin community.
Martin and Zaffirini will serve on the Healthcare Highways board of directors alongside other prominent Texas leaders, including Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith and Austin-based Santé Ventures founding partners Doug French and Dr. Joe Cunningham, the company said.
“I’m thrilled to welcome Jack and Carlos to our Healthcare Highways team,” Cowboys legend Smith said in a statement. “They will both be tremendous assets as we make healthcare more affordable in Austin and across Texas.”
Healthcare Highways, which was founded in 2010, helps local hospital systems, employers, and providers reintroduce “much-needed competition” into the healthcare marketplace, lowering the cost of healthcare coverage for Texas families.
Benefits of competition
Healthcare Highway said its unique approach ensures the Texas health insurance market isn’t just dominated by large, national insurance carriers, ensuring a more fair, competitive, and affordable market.
The company said the board additions come as it is already lowering the cost of healthcare in Austin. Healthcare Highways created a high-performance provider network, available to local employers for use in their employee health plans, that’s centered around St. David’s HealthCare facilities and many of Austin’s highest-performing local and independent providers.
The company said this new, collaborative approach to employee healthcare coverage directly benefits Austin employers. In the last two years, four large school districts in Central Texas have made the switch to this high-performance network.
Healthcare Highways said that it is seeing significant membership growth and, on average, has successfully reduced members’ medical spend by roughly 25% relative to the legacy insurance carriers.
‘Challenging healthcare to do better’
“I’m honored to join this diverse group of Texans who are committed to cultivating talent in our Austin community,” Zaffarini said in a statement. “Healthcare Highways is already doing exceptional work advancing health equity for our underserved neighbors in Austin, and we are just getting started.”
French, too, is excited about joining the board.
“Healthcare Highways is challenging healthcare to do better,” French said in a statement. “Their innovative and transformative approach is exactly what we need more of to assist our many diverse communities here in Austin.”
Healthcare Highways is a health plan and pioneer in the creation of high-performance networks that embrace innovation and align providers, employers, and employees.
It enables health systems and self-funded employers to declare independence from legacy health insurance carriers by reintroducing competition into the local market.
Get on the list.
Dallas Innovates, every day.
Sign up to keep your eye on what’s new and next in Dallas-Fort Worth, every day.
R E A D N E X T
-
The Dallas-based provider of digital care management solutions and services has released Aerial Social Care Coordinator—a cutting-edge solution designed to provide health plans and healthcare providers with immediate insight into individuals' social determinants of health barriers.
-
Yuvo Health, a New York-based technology-enabled administrative and managed-care solution provider for community health centers, announced Coppell executive Selase Dow as its new chief operating officer. Dow, who will remain based in the Dallas-Fort Worth city, brings more than two decades of managed care experience to the New York startup. Dow has worked closely with large physician organizations in North Texas to implement financial and care models and has a deep background in operations, ACO management, contracting, and more. Yuvo Health is a New York-based startup founded in 2021 by a BIPOC founding team. The company aims to provide administrative…
-
The investment from Cobalt Ventures follows MedArrive's $25 million series A round in November 2021 and brings its total funding to $40.5 million to date. "Everyone in America has a right to inclusive, high-quality care, yet too many are left out and have no one on their side who can connect them to the system," MedArrive Co-Founder and CEO Dan Trigub said. "That's what the MedArrive platform and our field providers offer."
-
Hospitals continue to face multiple challenges, Irving-based Vizient said in a policy briefing this week to more than 50 congressional staff and other healthcare shareholders at the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, D.C. The briefing, titled “Provider Pressures Persist: Hospitals' Struggles Against Financial, Workforce and Supply Chain Strains,” focused on how hospitals are responding to mounting pressures while continuing to provide essential community benefits.
-
Access Healthcare aims to improve cash flow and revenue realization for its hospital and health systems clients as a third-party revenue cycle services provider. Its success has led to rapid growth, and it's not stopping now—Access plans to hire over 18,000 people in 2022. Even with multiple headwinds—labor shortages, declining reimbursement, inflationary pressures, and health-related risks—the company has helped clients achieve financial stability, says Kumar Shwetabh, Access' Dallas-based U.S. president.
