Beech Street Corp., a Lake Forest-based operator of preferred provider organization health plans, acquired BestCare Inc., a PPO out of Baton Rouge, La.
Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
BestCare has a regional network of more than 7,000 doctors, 130 hospitals and 300 other healthcare providers throughout Louisiana and Mississippi. According to the company’s Web site, its services also include network access to fully insured or self-funded managed care products for large and small businesses, and what it calls technology to obtain understandable reports for its employer clients on plan usage, claims and healthcare provider profiles.
BestCare and Beech Street already had what the companies called a “productive collaborative relationship” prior to the deal.
In a release, Beech Street Chief Executive Bill Hale, in a statement, said that the BestCare deal “complements the breadth and quality of Beech Street’s already superior PPO presence in the marketplace, making Beech Street the logical choice as a network partner.”
Beech Street, which has more than 16 million enrollees nationwide, is privately held and was established in 1951 as a third-party administrator for workers’ compensation, later becoming a true PPO in 1974.
Beech Street counts more than 400,000 doctors, 3,800 network hospitals and 52,000 other network providers. Besides health benefit network access, it offers healthcare management services, out-of-network healthcare cost management programs and Internet services to more than 700 clients.
