Ali McCowan, Author at tango.

tango Partners with ATRIO Health Plans to Expand Access to Home Health Care for Medicare Advantage Members in Oregon

PHOENIX and SALEM, Ore. (March 16, 2026) – tango, the largest independent, risk-bearing home health benefit management solution in the nation, today announced a new partnership with ATRIO Health Plans to expand access to high-quality, value-based home health care. The collaboration went live on February 1 and supports ATRIO’s Medicare Advantage members in Oregon.

Under the partnership, tango will manage home health services for ATRIO members, using its value-based model to ensure members receive timely, appropriate care in the home following hospitalization or other acute events. By identifying high-need patients in real time and aligning incentives with high-performing home health providers, tango helps reduce delays in care, improve outcomes, and enhance the member experience.

“Rural Medicare Advantage members often face delayed or limited access to home health care following a hospital stay,” said Brian Lobley, CEO of tango. “tango was built to solve that challenge, connecting members to high-quality providers quickly and ensuring care is delivered in the home, even in harder-to-reach communities like many parts of Oregon.”

ATRIO serves Medicare Advantage members across several counties in Oregon and is known for its community-based approach and focus on personalized care. Through tango’s model, ATRIO members will benefit from faster referrals, improved care coordination, and access to a curated network of home health providers operating under value-based arrangements.

“Ensuring our members can safely recover at home is a priority for ATRIO,” said Jennifer Callahan, President & CEO of ATRIO Health Plans. “By partnering with tango, we’re strengthening access to skilled home health services and supporting smoother transitions of care for the people we serve in Oregon.”

Unlike traditional utilization management approaches that can delay or restrict access, tango’s model emphasizes collaboration with providers and rewards timely starts of care, quality performance, and positive patient outcomes.

tango places nearly all qualified home health referrals and accelerates start-of-care timelines by roughly two days compared to unmanaged populations—an improvement associated with lower utilization and stronger recovery at home. In past partnerships, tango-managed patients experienced 28% lower 30-day hospitalization rates and 35% lower readmissions compared to national benchmarks, while achieving 98% patient satisfaction.

This work marks tango’s second Medicare Advantage partnership in Oregon and doubles tango’s total managed Medicare Advantage population in the state.

The ATRIO partnership builds on tango’s continued growth nationwide as Medicare Advantage plans seek scalable, value-based solutions to improve access to home-based care amid rising costs and increasing demand. In 2025, tango expanded from four states serving roughly 1 million lives to a platform positioned to support 10 states and 2 million lives by early 2026, demonstrating speed, scalability, and replicability.

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Contact:
David Pittman
Pittman Policy Strategies
david@pittmanpolicy.com

ABOUT TANGO. tango is a leader in post-acute benefit enablement services, empowering patients to remain in their homes as they receive quality healthcare. tango provides value-based care enablement platforms for payors, risk-bearing entities, and providers to collaboratively serve Medicare Advantage, Managed Medicaid, and dual-eligible populations. The result is higher quality care, improved access, better patient outcomes, reduced total cost, enhanced Stars performance, and simplified administration. For more information, visit www.tangocare.com.

ABOUT ATRIO HEALTH PLANS. ATRIO Health Plans is an Oregon-based Medicare Advantage organization dedicated to delivering high-quality, affordable health coverage with a strong focus on member experience, preventive care, and community partnerships. ATRIO serves members across the state with plans designed to meet the needs of seniors and support healthier aging. For more information, visit www.atriohp.com.

McKnight’s Home Care Column: tango’s Suriya Grima on Why Post-Acute Strategy Matters More Than Ever

March 13, 2026
by Ali McCowan

Our Chief Strategy Officer, Suriya Grima, recently shared insights in a guest column published by McKnight’s Home Care, exploring the growing importance of post-acute strategy and the role it plays in improving outcomes across the care continuum.

Read the full piece on the McKnight’s Home Care website

Suriya Grima is the Chief Strategy Officer at tango. Prior to tango, she was the Vice President and General Manager of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s Individual Medicare business and has deep experience managing Medicare. She also worked for eight years as a consultant for Deloitte Consulting.

Medicare Advantage Rates Are Tightening. Post-Acute Strategy Matters More Than Ever.

The recently released Medicare Advantage (MA) rate notice reinforces a reality health plans already feel every day: profit margins are under increasing pressure, and they must better manage the health of their members to survive.

Overall, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) proposed a near-flat (0.1%) update in MA payment rates in 2027, even as underlying medical costs continue to rise. At the same time, CMS data shows one area growing faster than every other category in Medicare: post-acute care — particularly home health.

Post-acute spending is driving a disproportionate share of growth in Medicare spending. Home health spending is projected to increase by more than 10%—roughly 2.5x the growth rate of inpatient care. Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF) spending is projected to grow by more than 6%, about two percentage points faster than hospital care. Because MA benchmarks are based on traditional Medicare spending, growth in post-acute Fee-For-Service (FFS) costs directly flows into plan bids, even when rates themselves remain constrained.

As home health utilization grows, home health care access is a struggle for Medicare Advantage enrollees. Workforce shortages, reimbursement pressure, and increasing administrative friction mean agencies are more selective about the patients they accept. In many markets, plans are seeing longer placement times, narrower networks, and rising provider abrasion.

Together, those trends underscore how quickly utilization and dollars are shifting downstream — even as inpatient growth remains comparatively modest — and access challenges are emerging at the same pace.

With more scrutiny to risk adjustment, plans can’t rely on rate tightening or blunt utilization controls to generate savings. Instead, CMS appears to be reinforcing a shift toward care management and total cost control, particularly in high-growth areas like post-acute care. That combination creates a clear signal for Medicare Advantage leaders. Health plans must actively manage post-acute spending or continue to see margins and outcomes to erode.

Source: CMS Office of the Actuary, Advance Notice of Methodological Changes for CY 2027

Home health is growing, and it’s not slowing down

According to CMS, growth in home health spending is being driven by both utilization and unit costs, reflecting broader trends of an aging population, pressure to discharge patients sooner, and strong patient preference for recovering at home.

For years, post-acute care has been managed largely through utilization controls like eligibility checks, visit caps, and administrative hurdles designed to limit volume. But those approaches were built for a different era.

Today’s challenge is delivering better care:

Are members getting into home health quickly after discharge?
Are referrals going to high-quality providers who can prevent avoidable readmissions?
Are incentives aligned so agencies are rewarded for outcomes, not volume?
Is care being coordinated across settings, or fragmented across vendors?

When post-acute care is treated as a transactional benefit rather than a managed episode, plans lose the trust of patients, providers disengage, and avoidable costs show up later, often as readmissions, ED visits, or extended facility stays.

A shift toward coordinated, value-based post-acute care

Instead, MA plans need a different solution: tighter integration, better care management, and accountability for total cost of care.

This is where tango’s model aligns squarely with the moment. By managing post-acute referrals at the point of discharge, tango reduces placement delays and increases access to high-performing providers.

Rather than relying on utilization management alone, tango actively manages post-acute episodes end-to-end. That means:

Improving access by reducing placement delays and directing referrals to high-performing providers
Aligning incentives through value-based, episodic reimbursement rather than volume-driven payments
Reducing friction for plans and providers by integrating referral management, utilization oversight, and claims into a single delegated model
Driving better outcomes through real-time clinical oversight and accountability across the episode of care

For plans, the result is a more sustainable way to manage one of the fastest-growing areas of spend without sacrificing quality or member experience. For providers, it creates predictability, partnership, and incentives that reward good care.

The takeaway for MA leaders

Margin protection won’t come from across-the-board cuts or tighter gates alone. It will come from smarter care delivery, especially in high-growth areas like post-acute care.

Plans that invest now in coordinated, value-based post-acute strategies will be better positioned to absorb cost pressure, improve outcomes, and compete on member experience. Those that don’t may find that unmanaged growth quietly undermines both financial performance and quality metrics.

Home health isn’t just a cost center. Managed well, it’s a lever for better care and a competitive advantage.

Turning Post-Acute Care into a Competitive Advantage

tango partners with Medicare Advantage plans to transform post-acute care from a cost center into a performance driver. Our delegated model improves placement speed, aligns providers around outcomes, and delivers predictable savings, all while protecting member access.

If you’re rethinking your post-acute strategy in light of the 2027 rate notice, we’d welcome a conversation.

Leading with Purpose: Brian Lobley on Why Home-First Care Is the Future

Brian Lobley, chief executive officer of tango, was recently featured on CEOs You Should Know, an iHeartMedia podcast that spotlights executives shaping the future of their industries. The conversation highlighted Brian’s leadership qualities and underscored why tango’s growth, strategy, and impact are resonating across healthcare.

As home-based care moves to the center of the healthcare delivery system, industry leaders are increasingly looking to executives who can navigate complexity, scale responsibly, and keep patients at the center of innovation. Brian’s leadership at tango reflects that moment.

A Leadership Style Built on Impact

During the conversation, Brian reflected on a career that spans technology, strategy, and operations across some of healthcare’s largest organizations, including senior leadership roles at Independence Blue Cross, one of the nation’s largest regional health plans. There, he worked at the intersection of payer strategy, technology modernization, and provider relationships, experience that shaped his perspective on how incentives drive outcomes at scale. What ultimately drew him to tango, he shared, was the ability to see impact more clearly and more quickly.

Brian’s perspective shapes how tango operates today. He described how he emphasizes mission and culture while encouraging teams to continuously improve processes across people, technology, and operations. For example, he starts every meeting with a patient story and personally meets with every new hire.

Brian has fostered a culture where innovation and execution go hand in hand. The result is a company that moves fast without losing sight of why the work matters.

Scaling a Home-First Model That Works

Under Brian’s leadership, tango has grown rapidly by leaning into a simple but powerful premise: when clinically appropriate, patients want to recover at home, and outcomes are better when they do.

On the podcast, Brian described tango’s “home-first” approach to post-acute care, which prioritizes timely, high-quality transitions from hospital to home. By aligning incentives across health plans and providers and operating in value-based payment arrangements, tango helps reduce readmissions, improve access to care, and lower total cost of care. tango prioritizes access, its “secret sauce”, and patients are 30% less likely to be readmitted to the hospital or visit an emergency room if they’re seen at home within two days of a hospital discharge.

tango’s model is scaling quickly. tango has expanded its footprint from four states in early 2025 to 10 states by 2026, growing the number of Medicare Advantage lives it serves while maintaining high standards for quality and member experience.

Recognition That Reflects Momentum

Being featured on an iHeart podcast alongside leaders from across industries is third-party validation of tango’s trajectory and Brian’s role in shaping it. As policymakers, payers, and providers rethink how post-acute care should work and its role in managed care, voices like Brian’s are helping define what comes next.

For tango, the takeaway is clear: the market is paying attention. The challenges in home health—access gaps, workforce shortages, and rising costs—are real. But so is the opportunity to solve them with smarter, value-based approaches that put patients first.

As Brian put it during the interview, healthcare is ultimately a team sport. tango’s continued growth reflects what’s possible when leadership, incentives, and purpose are aligned around getting patients the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Listen to the Podcast

iHeartMedia CEOs You Should Know - Brian Lobley

iHeartMedia’s CEOs You Should Know Featuring tango CEO Brian Lobley

Our CEO, Brian Lobley, joined iHeartMedia’s CEOs You Should Know podcast to share how tango is reshaping home health care for Medicare Advantage plans and the members they serve.

In the conversation, Brian discusses:
• Why access to home-based care remains one of healthcare’s biggest unsolved challenges
• How tango’s home-first, value-based model gets patients home faster—and keeps them there
• How aligning incentives between plans and providers expands access
• Why episode-focused, value-based care is the most practical path forward for post-acute transformation

We’re proud to see Brian and tango recognized as leaders in value-based post-acute care and even more proud of the impact our team and provider partners create every day.

Pennsylvania insurer partners with tango to grow home health access for MA members

Independence Blue Cross has joined forces with a post-acute management services company to improve access to home health services for more than 118,000 Medicare Advantage (MA) members in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania-based insurer announced Tuesday it is partnering with tango, a leader in post-acute benefit enablement services, to manage post-acute care for MA members, particularly home-based care, with the goal of improving patient outcomes, improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary hospital readmissions.

In the Independence Blue Cross service area, which covers Philadelphia and southeastern Pennsylvania, tango has relationships with over 300 home health agencies, with more than two-third of those agencies in a value-based relationship with the company, according to Brian Lobley, CEO of tango. He said the company works to facilitate speedy referrals for home health care to these agency partners once patients are discharged from hospitals.

“We are really prioritizing on getting patients home as soon as possible,” he told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse. “We think that’s the best place for them to recover.”

In addition to partnerships with health insurers in Pennsylvania, tango also has partnerships with other health insurers and home health agencies in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, serving approximately 950,000 MA members in those four states. It also partners with WellSky to provide comprehensive post-acute care solutions to approximately 185,000 members in Ohio, Texas and Oregon, and hopes to extend its reach into Michigan and Tennessee over the next few months.

From a home health care perspective, some of the benefits of partnering with tango include faster referrals to skilled home health providers, which leads to fewer delays, lower readmission rates, improved care, enhanced patient satisfaction and potential cost savings, according to Lobley.

Ensuring a smooth transition from the hospital to a home-based environment is critical to patient safety and reduces costly hospital readmissions, which cost about $18,000 each, he noted. “If we’re able to avoid that, it’s a pretty significant savings,” he said.

The partnership between tango and Independence Blue Cross began in May, and initial findings from the collaboration have been positive.

“We have a 97% patient satisfaction rate, and of our qualified referrals, we have placed 100% of those with a home health agency within two days of receiving a referral,” Lobley said.

Richard Snyder, MD, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Independence Blue Cross, said “healing at home is a proven way to help patients feel better physically and maintain a better quality of life.”

“Home is where our members want to recover, and we’re committed to making that transition as seamless as possible,” he said in a statement about the partnership. “Not only because it’s their preference, but because time and again, it has shown to lead to better outcomes — even compared to the most advanced hospital settings.”

Read the Original Article

Independence Blue Cross Taps tango To Scale Value-Based Medicare Advantage Home Health Network

Pennsylvania health insurer Independence Blue Cross (IBX) has partnered with post-acute benefit enablement company tango to expand access to home health care through value-based reimbursement arrangements.

The partnership, announced on Tuesday, is designed to lower readmission rates and total cost of care by building IBX’s home health network for its Medicare Advantage members.

“Our whole model is to drive timely home health access, because we believe that reduces the total cost of care in a post-acute setting,” Brian Lobley, CEO of tango, told Home Health Care News. “Our objective really is at discharge, to get someone who’s qualified for [skilled home health into their homes] as fast as possible. We believe that we shorten that duration.”

Phoenix, Arizona-based tango is a managed service organization that partners with health plans to enable post-acute care for Medicare Advantage and Medicaid dual enrollees. The company provides utilization management services and aims to take full risk with its reimbursement agreements, Lobley said.

The partnership, launched in May, has been in a transitional period, Lobley said, in which the company works with hospitals and providers to inform referral parties and home health agencies that tango will act as the payment mechanism, managing referrals and fielding claims.

“It takes 60 to 90 days, about a quarter, to get the model in,” Lobley said. “We do a ton of education beforehand, start 60 days before go live, but then we are doing a lot of retraining throughout first and second quarter so we can get the model where it’s pretty seamless and working directly with tango.”

Early data from the program found 100% of qualified referrals for IBX Medicare Advantage members were placed with a home health agency within two days of tango receiving the referral, with a 97% member satisfaction rate, according to the company.

When working with home health agencies, tango pays providers a set rate, measures the readmission and emergency room rates in the post-acute setting and shares some of the savings from lower readmission rates.

Read the Full Article

Independence Blue Cross, tango partner on home health services

Independence Blue Cross and tango have teamed up to help 118,000 Medicare Advantage members in Pennsylvania get quicker access to home health services.

The partnership between insurer and the post-acute management services company aims to reduce hospital readmissions by ensuring Independence members receive in-home post-acute care within 48 hours of a hospital discharge, the companies said in a Tuesday news release.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has raised red flags about the potential impacts of delayed access to home healthcare, especially to patients in low-income areas.

tango has value-based contracts with home health companies such as Enhabit Home Health and Hospice, Bayada Home Health Care and Vital Caring Group. It acts as a middleman by contracting with providers, qualifying patients for home-based care and assigning services to the most appropriate post-acute provider, said CEO Brian Lobley.

tango has partnerships with other health insurers in Pennsylvania as well as in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas and Oregon. Lobley said the company plans to expand to Michigan and Tennessee in the next few months.

Independence Blue Cross is one of the largest insurers in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Read Original Article

Independence Blue Cross builds on its strong network of skilled home health services through new work with tango

PHILADELPHIA, PA (January 6, 2026) – Independence Blue Cross (IBX) has teamed up with tango, a leader in providing post-acute benefit enablement services, to build on the strong network of skilled home health options it offers Medicare Advantage members. The work IBX and tango are doing together could enhance the experience that up to 118,000 IBX Medicare Advantage members have when they leave the hospital and continue their care at home.

“Healing at home isn’t just comforting, it’s a proven way to help patients feel better physically and maintain a better quality of life,” said Dr. Richard Snyder, executive vice president and chief operating officer at Independence Blue Cross. “This is especially true for adults 65 and older. Home is where our members want to recover, and we’re committed to making that transition as seamless as possible. Not only because it’s their preference, but because time and again, it has shown to lead to better outcomes—even compared to the most advanced hospital settings.”

According to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, nearly 3 million traditional Medicare members received home health services nationwide in 2023. tango’s technology helps meet this growing need for skilled home health services by identifying patients with complex conditions in real time as they leave the hospital. This enables faster referrals to skilled home health providers, which leads to fewer delays, lower readmission rates, improved care, and enhanced patient satisfaction.

“Today’s announcement shows Medicare Advantage plans are eager to leverage tango’s platform to improve speed to care and lower costs at a time when health costs continue to increase and plans are under increased scrutiny,” said Brian Lobley, tango CEO. “Unlike traditional tools, like prior authorization, tango’s model drives provider collaboration with health plans and delivers more efficient, better care.

Early results from IBX and tango’s work together are positive. They show that 100 percent of qualified referrals for IBX Medicare Advantage members have been placed with a home agency within 2 days of tango receiving the referral, achieving a 97 percent member satisfaction rate.

About Independence Blue Cross
Independence Blue Cross is the leading health insurance organization in southeastern Pennsylvania. For more than 85 years, we have been enhancing the health and well-being of the people and communities we serve. We deliver innovative and competitively priced health care products and services; pioneer new ways to reward doctors, hospitals, and other health care professionals for coordinated, quality care; and support programs and events that promote wellness. To learn more, visit ibx.com. Connect with us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Independence Blue Cross is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

About tango
tango is a leader in post-acute benefit enablement services, empowering patients to remain in their homes as they receive quality healthcare. tango provides value-based care enablement platforms for payors, risk-bearing entities and providers to more collaboratively serve Medicare Advantage, Managed Medicaid and dual-eligible populations. The result is higher quality care, improved access, better patient outcomes, reduced total cost, enhanced Stars performance and administration simplification.

Contacts:
David Pittman
tango
david@pittmanpolicy.com

Diana Quattrone
Independence Blue Cross
Diana.Quattrone@IBX.com

Healthcare veteran David Wilkinson to join tango as Chief Financial Officer

October 1, 2025
by Ali McCowan

PR Newswire | October 1, 2025

tango, a leader in post-acute care benefit enablement services, today announced the addition of David Wilkinson as Chief Financial Officer. Wilkinson will oversee tango’s financial operations and play a key role in supporting the company’s growth.

“David has a wealth of healthcare management and finance experience and is widely recognized for his contributions toward building value-based care companies,” tango CEO Brian Lobley said. “His knowledge in startup and growth-stage healthcare companies will add valuable experience and perspective as we continue to expand our services nationwide. We are thrilled to welcome David to our team.”

“One of the many things that sets tango apart in post-acute care is our ability to attract and retain top talent,” tango Board Chairman Nick Loporcaro said. “David knows how to match innovative approaches against high standards of care in an evolving healthcare landscape.”

tango works with national and regional health plans, including downstream at-risk entities that serve Medicare Advantage, Managed Medicaid and dual-eligible populations. As part of tango’s Midwest growth strategy, the company partnered with Pennsylvania-based Medicaid provider AmeriHealth Caritas earlier this year. The partnership will improve access to quality care and ease the post-acute transition process for thousands of Pennsylvania patients.

The Vistria Group, a middle market private investment firm that seeks to deliver both superior financial returns and meaningful impact, completed its investment in tango (formerly Professional Health Care Network) in March 2022. The partnership has allowed tango to grow its footprint and expand its strategic partnerships, platform capabilities and impact — often for patients dealing with highly complex medical needs.

“Post-acute and home-based care is an essential sector to improve healthcare outcomes across the U.S.,” Wilkinson said. “tango’s work elevating value-based care is setting a new standard in this space. We share the mission of serving some of our nation’s most vulnerable populations with compassion and dignity and I’m excited to join tango and support its next phase of growth.”

Wilkinson brings more than 15 years of experience in finance and healthcare management and most recently served as Chief Financial Officer of DispatchHealth, a leading provider of high-acuity, in-home medical care for people experiencing serious health concerns. At DispatchHealth, he played a key role in scaling the company’s core offerings and driving expansion into the Hospital at Home segment through the acquisition of Medically Home. This expansion enabled the company to help more patients avoid unnecessary emergency room visits, hospital readmissions, inpatient starts, and skilled nursing facility admissions.

He previously worked at Russell Street Ventures, where he helped grow Main Street Health, a value-based healthcare company serving rural Medicare patients, and CareBridge, a value-based healthcare company that supports Medicaid-eligible individuals receiving home and community-based services. Prior to these roles, he was part of the leadership team at Landmark Health, a value-based house call provider for chronically ill patients acquired by Optum in 2021.

Wilkinson earned his MBA in Healthcare Management from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

He will succeed outgoing CFO Kirk Stanley following a structured transition period to ensure continuity. Stanley is a veteran of health plan operations, value-based care solutions, condition management and technology-enabled services and was instrumental in guiding tango through several phases of growth while maintaining high-quality care delivery amid the complexities of a highly regulated industry.

Read Original Article

1 2

tango Partners with ATRIO Health Plans to Expand Access to Home Health Care for Medicare Advantage Members in Oregon

New partnership supports Medicare Advantage members statewide, marks tango’s second collaboration in Oregon

McKnight’s Home Care Column: tango’s Suriya Grima on Why Post-Acute Strategy Matters More Than Ever

By Suriya Grima | March 4, 2026

Medicare Advantage Rates Are Tightening. Post-Acute Strategy Matters More Than Ever

Home health is growing, and it’s not slowing down

A shift toward coordinated, value-based post-acute care

The takeaway for MA leaders

Turning Post-Acute Care into a Competitive Advantage

Leading with Purpose: Brian Lobley on Why Home-First Care Is the Future

A Leadership Style Built on Impact

Scaling a Home-First Model That Works

Recognition That Reflects Momentum

Podcast

Brian Lobley Chief Executive Officer of tango | CEO's You Should Know

Pennsylvania insurer partners with tango to grow home health access for MA members

By JOHN ROSZKOWSKI | January 9, 2026

Independence Blue Cross Taps tango To Scale Value-Based Medicare Advantage Home Health Network

By Morgan Gonzalez | January 6, 2026

Independence Blue Cross, tango partner on home health services

By Diane Eastabrook | January 6, 2026

Independence Blue Cross builds on its strong network of skilled home health services through new work with tango

Collaboration gives IBX Medicare Advantage members even more options for care when moving from the hospital to their home

Healthcare veteran David Wilkinson to join tango as Chief Financial Officer

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