Harken Health is closing shop.
The UnitedHealth subsidiary is shutting the doors of its 11 clinics in Illinois and Georgia. It operated health centers in Des Plaines, Skokie and Chicago, Illinois, and Austell, Decatur, Duluth, Marietta, Roswell and Atlanta, Georgia.
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Launched in 2015, Harken was UnitedHealth’s bet on merging health insurance coverage with primary care. Members received free primary care at Harken’s clinics, as well as 24/7 phone access to physicians, according to the Chicago Tribune. Its clinics also offered yoga and acupuncture classes, mental health counseling and personal health coaches. Harken hoped to get members to seek care early to avoid costly health issues later on.
But the bet didn’t work out. The subsidiary will slowly be leaving the market.
“Harken Health will be phasing out of current membership in the two states where it operates and closing the business,” UnitedHealth said in a statement emailed to MedCity News.
Individual members will have coverage through the end of 2017, and members with employer group plans will be covered through the end of their contracts, UnitedHealth added.
Harken Health did not immediately respond to MedCity’s request for a statement.
The decision to close Harken Health comes after a rough year, financially and otherwise. Harken had a net loss of almost $64 million in 2016 and got infusions of $120 million from UnitedHealth, according to the Chicago Tribune.
Although the subsidiary initially planned on expanding to the south Florida market, it decided not to do so in August 2016. Harken made “a strategic decision to maintain a keen focus on our current markets of Atlanta and Chicago. Harken believes people in South Florida could benefit greatly from our innovative model, and we look forward to offering access to those services as part of future expansion,” Harken Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Shoemate said in a statement at the time, according to the Star Tribune.
In September 2016, Harken’s leadership team went through a transition. CEO Tom Vanderheyden left the company and was replaced by Stevan Garcia, according to the Star Tribune.
Later that month, the subsidiary said it did not plan to offer plans on the Affordable Care Act exchanges in Illinois and Georgia for 2017. “We remain committed to our innovative model of insurance paired with access to relationship-based care and we look forward to continuing to offer plans to individuals and employers who purchase coverage outside of the exchange,” Harken said in a statement to Bloomberg at the time.
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