VA taps Triwest for $26B regional care network contract

The Veterans Affairs Department has awarded a new piece of its broad “Community Care Network” contract vehicle for help to manage the VA’s future network of care service providers.

In a FedBizOpps notice posted Wednesday, the VA said Triwest Healthcare Alliance Corp. has won the potential $26 billion portion that covers CCN Region 4.

Region 4 encompasses the 14 Mountain and Pacific time zone states, plus Hawaii. UnitedHealth Group’s Optum health services businesses won the contracts for Regions 1, 2 and 3 late last year with a combined $55.1 ceiling value to work in the 36 Eastern and Central time zone states.

CCN is intended as a standardized mechanism for the VA to purchase care for veterans from community health providers and cover care coordination. This is so veterans can acquire medical, dental and pharmacy benefits if they cannot access those at local VA medical centers.

The VA broke up CCN contracts into six regions, including the four that have been awarded so far. Triwest in the meantime has expanded its network to support care coordination until the CCN program is rolled out and stood up across the country.

All CCN contracts cover one initial base year followed by up to seven individual option years. Awards are due by the end of this year for Region 5 that is Alaska and Region 6 that includes U.S. territories in the Pacific Ocean.