With a joint venture finalized, Reno, Nev.-based Renown Health and Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente now co-own Renown’s health plan, Hometown Health.
For Kaiser, it marks its entry into Nevada. For Renown, it’s an opportunity to scale up its health plan to be more competitive in the market.
“We’re committed as part of our mission to ensure affordability for our community and unless you have some ability to control premium dollars, essentially all the work you do on affordability just generates profitability for insurance companies,” Renown CEO Brian Erling, MD, told Becker’s. “So we very much want to be in this healthcare insurance space so that we can deliver on our promise to the community to keep healthcare affordable, to ensure that there’s adequate access.”
Serving around 74,000 people, Hometown Health is a relatively small regional plan, Dr. Erling said, adding that scale is necessary in order to compete in the insurance space “because most of the players are pretty large, national companies.”
“We needed a partner in order to really deliver on what we wanted for the community,” he said. “The partnership with Kaiser Permanente will be able to create access, maintain affordability and improve health outcomes.”
Dr. Erling noted that northern Nevada is a fast-growing area and much of that growth is coming from Californians who are familiar with Kaiser Permanente’s integrated, primary care-driven model.
“Frankly, from community members that I’ve talked to, they’ve asked, ‘Why isn’t there something like that available?'” Dr. Erling said.
Along with co-ownership of the health plan, the joint venture will also launch a new outpatient care-delivery system. Kaiser will operate the existing Del Monte Lane medical offices in Reno and open two more facilities in 2026. Each location will offer primary and specialty care, a lab and general radiology.
In 2027, Kaiser-owned retail pharmacies will be available in addition to Renown Pharmacy. Kaiser Permanente members will also have access to Renown services, including emergency, inpatient, outpatient, and surgical care. Kaiser’s full digital health platform will be available to members in 2027.
“So what we’ve done is essentially create a choice for the market and in that process, while I’m continuing to grow my medical group and recruit primary care providers and specialists to continue to meet our growing community needs, we’re also going to be opening these new Kaiser Permanente clinics that are creating more access and more options for the community.”
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