This phase addresses a structural challenge. Cooperatives do not offer the equity upside that attracts conventional investment, while building viable scale one individual member at a time can take longer than the model can sustain. An anchor organization provides another path: it purchases primary care directly for the population it serves, at the rate established in Phase Three, as it would any other essential service.
This is where the work of the first three phases becomes useful. The conversation begins with a clinical model that has been pressure-tested, a measurement framework capable of showing whether it works, and a fee structure grounded in the actual cost of delivering care well.
What this actually requires: bringing the people responsible for care, finance, operations, benefits, governance, and cooperative structure into the same conversation. Together, they work through the population being served, the resources already available, the cost of care, the terms of participation, and the measures that will show whether the model is succeeding.
The purpose is not to persuade one party to accept a structure designed by another. It is to find the arrangement that allows every participant to succeed: the anchor can meet its responsibilities, the care team can deliver the model as designed, the cooperative can remain financially sound, and patients can receive continuous care. The details matter because they are where that shared solution takes form.
The anchor conversation is therefore part of building the model itself. The right people sit at the same table, identify what would prevent the partnership from working, and solve those issues together until there is one workable path forward.
Target Endpoint: one anchor organization formally committed to purchasing care for a defined population under terms that support the anchor, the cooperative, the care team, and the patients they will serve.