In the wake of Haven — the much-touted employer-sponsored health care joint venture that paired Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway before disbanding in January — JPMorgan Chase has launched Morgan Health.
The new business unit will focus on improving the quality, efficiency, and equity of employer-sponsored health care, the company says, and plans call for Morgan Health to work with provider groups, health plans, employers, and other organizations. JPMorgan Chase employs 165,000 people in the United States and provides health insurance coverage to 285,000 employees and dependents.
“We learned a lot from the Haven experience,” Dan Mendelson, CEO of Morgan Health, told Becker’s Hospital Review. “The Haven experience focused us on primary care, digital medicine, and specific populations. … You can see this as a continuation of the work that was started at Haven.”
Mendelson emphasized, however, that Morgan Health will follow a more simplified business structure than Haven and embrace partnerships. “We don’t want to create things from scratch,” he said. “We are going to be collaborating with outstanding health care organizations nationally to accomplish our objectives. That’s another piece that differentiates this effort from the prior one.”
Three focus areas
Morgan Health initially will focus on JPMorgan Chase employees and families, according to a company statement, while also striving to create a model for other employers. To that end, Morgan Health’s emphasis will be on the following three areas:
1. Accelerating health system improvements via capital allocation.
The organization will initially deploy up to $250 million by investing in promising health care solutions and overall system improvements for the benefit of JPMorgan Chase employees and the broader employer-sponsored health care system.
2. Enhancing JP Morgan Chase employee health benefits through strategic initiatives.
Morgan Health and the JPMorgan Chase Benefits team will work collaboratively with leading health care organizations to improve care for its U.S.-based employees and dependents, with the ultimate goal of developing models for other employers seeking to improve health care.
3. Promoting health care equity.
Health disparities limit gains in quality of care and health for the broader population, and Morgan Health will focus on health equity within the firm’s employee base, as well as the communities it serves.
“We need to try to make the U.S. health care system work better,” JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement, noting that nearly half of the U.S. population receives employer-sponsored health insurance. “We have the best health care in the world in terms of doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies, but we certainly do not have the best outcomes. Many of our problems have been around for a long time and are not aging well. There are ways we can make significant improvements, and we intend to take a disciplined approach to solving some of these issues in a meaningful way.”