Tufts, CIGNA form national alliance

A national and regional managed care company will align networks to give far-flung, multistate firms access to more physicians and hospitals.

By Robert Kazel, AMNews staff. Jan. 17, 2005.

Waltham. Mass.-based Tufts Health Plan, a nonprofit firm, is teaming with for-profit CIGNA HealthCare in a joint marketing arrangement.

The pact will open CIGNA's physician and hospital networks nationwide to employees of certain companies served by Tufts who live and work in regions outside of Tufts' New England home.

The agreement is expected to enable both Tufts and Bloomfield, Conn.-based CIGNA to reach out more effectively to win the business of companies whose workers are spread out across the country.

The companies will start pitching the alliance to plan sponsors in February. Employees whose firms choose the option can use the expanded network, incorporating Tufts and CIGNA physicians, starting in the last quarter of 2005, said Richard Gray, CIGNA vice president for business development.

The two plans will offer participation in the nationwide network to firms with at least 200 employees. Tufts members whose employers choose products enhanced with the CIGNA affiliation will be able to go to any physician in CIGNA's networks outside Massachusetts or Rhode Island, Gray said.

CIGNA has 12 million medical members; Tufts. 714,000. CIGNA has 400,000 doctors in its networks, encompassing every state, while Tufts has 20,000.