Emory Healthcare and Intermountain Healthcare Help Expand Contigo Health’s Employers Centers of Excellence Network

Key takeaways:

• Contigo Health's Employers Centers of Excellence Network (ECEN) welcomes Emory Healthcare and Intermountain Healthcare.
• The ECEN offers high-quality care to employers that are Contigo Health client members.
• Emory and Intermountain will bring specialized care to client members focused on total joint (hip and knee), spine care and bariatric care.

For more on this topic:

• Read about ECEN Passport, Contigo Health's vast employer offering.

Contigo Health, LLC has always taken pride in the caliber of institutions it brings into the Employers Centers of Excellence Network (ECEN). In 2021, we were thrilled to welcome two new health systems – Emory Healthcare and Intermountain Healthcare – to the ECEN to offer high-quality care to employers that are Contigo Health client members.

How the ECEN Works

The ECEN provider selection is a rigorous process which includes clinical quality and volume requirements for both facilities and participating clinicians. All ECEN providers go through a significant vetting process of site visits and assessments to validate their ability to deliver patient-centric care. Clinical and administrative leaders are interviewed, and site visits identify risks in the service line and system. Contigo Health’s ECEN team works closely with both Emory and Intermountain at the clinical and operational level to help ensure the total cost of care is reduced.

The ECEN Passport™ program, a destination centers of excellence (COE) program that includes a bundled cost, represents a major part of Contigo Health’s ongoing commitment to continuous improvement and enhanced offerings for its client’s members.

The team spends hours onboarding new providers, creating streamlined pathways for referrals and reviewing claims processes. By vetting the facilities and participating providers, we are able to help navigate patients and their families through their treatment journey, uncomplicating what can often feel like a challenging, emotional and daunting process. We have also found that adopting the ECEN Passport program differentiates employers on a regional basis, giving them an added edge when competing for talent.

The Emory-Intermountain Advantage

Emory University Orthopedics & Spine Hospital (EUOSH) and Emory University Hospital Midtown both bring specialized care to our client’s members. EUOSH will focus on total joint (hip and knee) and spine care, while Midtown will offer bariatric care. These offerings are complementary to Contigo Health’s ECEN Passport COE program through their surgery consultations and related COE services.

Emory and Contigo Health have worked closely with dedicated teams to implement and deliver consistent services to the member patients and their caregivers for travel surgery programs. Emory will offer care to employer associates based in the southeastern U.S. through the ECEN program.

"We are pleased to build upon our collaboration with Contigo Health to advance the shared mission to serve patients by improving the health of patients through integration of education for surgery to help achieve positive outcomes,” said Scott D. Boden, MD, Vice President of Business Innovation at Emory Healthcare. “The patient remains at the center with our teams working seamlessly with Contigo Health’s clinical and operations teams to effectively navigate plan benefits throughout the patient’s episodes of care.”

Intermountain LDS Hospital will focus on total joint (hip and knee) and bariatric care for associates in the Mountain and West regions.

“LDS Hospital is honored to partner with Contigo Health. This is an incredible opportunity to advance our mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible by connecting patients with some of the nation’s top caregivers,” said Rob Allen, Chief Operating Officer at Intermountain Healthcare.

Emory and Intermountain have demonstrated a commitment to integrated healthcare delivery through high-quality providers and evidence-based practices utilizing a multi-disciplinary approach to help ensure the right care is delivered at the right time. They have demonstrated an ability to develop and implement comprehensive, value-based bundles that cover the entire episode of care, including outpatient and inpatient services.

When it comes to musculoskeletal care, time to treatment and access to facilities with state of the art and comprehensive care services are critical to positive patient outcomes. Working with Emory University for the ECEN Passport spine program provides integrated care delivery services for destination medicine patients. This includes diagnostics, optimization for any potential surgery and the initiation of conservative treatment where appropriate to support members while at the COE. Similar to all ECEN Passport programs, this allows patients to return to work faster, with an improved quality of life and better degree of satisfaction.

Looking to the Future

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Contigo Health successfully managed thousands of destination travel surgery patients by working closely with national clinicians through our COVID-19 command center. We are working closely with our provider partners to be poised for growth in 2022, emerging from the pandemic as stronger healthcare partners.

When working with ECEN Passport, employers often find cases that might have traditionally been managed with surgery are able to be handled without. Regardless of whether or not surgery is needed, the ECEN program has proven to help patients achieve optimal outcomes so they can get back to their lives faster.

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