With the start of the new year, Duke Medicine is undergoing a rebranding, including a name change from Duke Medicine to Duke Health.
Dr. A. Eugene Washington, chancellor for health affairs and president and CEO of Duke University Health System, noted that the name change is intended to represent a more inclusive approach to improving health.
“Duke Health signals our intention to explore more comprehensive approaches to health that extend beyond medical care and into other determinants of population health improvement,” he said in a Duke Today press release.
Since arriving at Duke in April 2015, Washington has laid out a vision for the Duke Health System that includes expanding interdisciplinary research efforts between the School of Medicine and Duke’s other graduate programs and investing in community collaboration with businesses, Durham government and other governmental entities.
The decision to rebrand came as a result of conversations between various stakeholders, including faculty, staff, trainees, alumni, board members and others, according to an internal memo from Washington dated Jan. 13. Because most of the current websites and promotional materials are still branded as Duke Medicine, the transition from Duke Medicine to Duke Health is expected to take most of the year, according to the press release, which noted that the logo will remain unchanged other than the change from the word “Medicine” to the word “Health.”
The rebranding can also be seen in television advertisements, which have been airing since late October on local networks and on platforms such as Hulu. The ads, which are part of an effort called Plan for Duke, encourage North Carolina residents to update their insurance plans to include Duke providers.
“Even if your current plan covers Duke, drastic changes to insurance plans could put your health at risk,” reads text from the Plan for Duke website. “Simply put, you could lose your Duke doctor as well as care from the #1 hospital in the state.”
According to reporting by Duke Today, the changes will have no impact on Duke employees who have a Duke health insurance plan. The goal of the advertisements is to educate current Duke patients purchasing a plan at Healthcare.gov to ensure that their plan includes Duke doctors and clinics.
This push is in response to the rise in popularity of narrow-network health insurance plans, which according to information from the organization Academy Health, are increasingly popular among insurers because they allow insurance companies to offer lower monthly premiums by limiting the group of providers available to patients.
According to a study by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, 52 percent of insurance products offered under the Affordable Care Act are these narrow-network plans.
Insurance enrollment for 2016 will continue until Jan. 31, according to Forbes.
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