The traditional payer-provider model has long been complex, fragmented, and transactional. However, ChristianaCare and Highmark Health believe there is a better way. Leveraging our shared goals, strategies, and capabilities, we have formed a collaboration called Curascend. Working together with Highmark Health’s affiliate health plan in Delaware, we are aiming to deliver health care that keeps people healthier and makes care more affordable. Our shared mission is to go beyond delivering health care and truly enable health and well-being.
How Does It Work?
The fundamental premise is simple: People – our customers, our employees, and our neighbors – want health for their lives. Helping people get or stay healthy costs less over the long run, is better for our economy, and is better for our communities.
Through Curascend, we aim to:
- Advance health and well-being with joint population health efforts
- Innovate products, capabilities, and programs
- Foster a growth mindset in both organizations
Curascend helps us reduce the administrative issues that often trouble traditional health care relationships, like prior authorizations, denials, and lack of financial transparency, and create challenges for the health care consumer. Through Curascend, we aim to make meaningful progress in reducing these administrative burdens to reduce waste and improve the customer and clinician experience.
Working Together for a Healthier Future
We will know we are successful if we see improvements in:
- Health Outcomes: Through coordinated clinical programs and leading care management, we aim to improve the overall health of the people we serve.
- Medical Costs: Proactive health management helps lower the total cost of care by preventing unnecessary interventions and hospitalizations.
- Consumer Experience: More accessible, affordable, and user-friendly health care improves the experience for patients and members.
- Clinician Experience: Reducing administrative burden and supporting providers in the work of delivering health care helps combat clinician burnout and improves the experience of delivering care.
- Administrative Burden: Working together to reduce overhead costs and simplify how we work together should improve timely access to care and help advance health care affordability for customers, employers, and governments.
Going Forward: Charting the Path…
Curascend serves as a neutral operating partner for complex, multi‑stakeholder healthcare transformation. We provide disciplined program management, coordinated vendor oversight, and structured change readiness to help public‑sector leaders and healthcare partners translate policy and strategy into reliable execution.
We are built to manage the operational complexity of large, interconnected initiatives—aligning stakeholders, coordinating delivery partners, and maintaining clear accountability through transparent reporting and measurement. This allows providers and agencies to remain focused on mission‑critical services while transformation efforts deliver measurable, sustainable results.
As an integrating partner across platforms, vendors, and local organizations, Curascend ensures initiatives are executed consistently, adopted at the community level, and positioned for long‑term success across diverse care settings and jurisdictions.