Atlantic Health System, an eight-hospital system headquartered in Morristown, N.J., has partnered with health technology company Garner Health to give employers and their workers a data-driven tool for finding high-quality physicians at lower out-of-pocket cost.
Four things to know:
1. The partnership combines Atlantic Health’s provider network with Garner’s physician identification platform, which includes more than 60 billion medical records from 320 million patients and uses over 550 clinical metrics to surface top-performing physicians.
2. When employees at participating employer clients use Garner’s platform to find and see a Garner-identified top provider within Atlantic Health, the employer helps cover their out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-pays. Garner said its model reduces employee out-of-pocket spending by an average of 80% and provides an average 12% reduction in total healthcare spend for employers in the first year.
3. Atlantic Health will also use Garner’s data to support its internal quality improvement work, though Garner’s algorithm operates independently of the health system, which is designed to preserve the credibility of the provider rankings for employers and employees.
4. The deal extends Atlantic Health’s value-based care strategy into the employer market, where rising benefit costs have made health systems an increasingly direct party in conversations historically dominated by insurers and benefits consultants. Atlantic Health operates eight hospitals, more than 550 sites of care and a clinically integrated network of more than 4,000 providers across northern and central New Jersey.
“Atlantic Health is committed to providing better outcomes at a lower cost,” Atlantic Health President and CEO Saad Ehtisham said in a May 19 news release. “As leaders in value-based care through our accountable care organizations, exciting partnerships like the one we are announcing today with Garner demonstrate that we are challenging ourselves to lead the nation in bending the cost curve for patients and their families.”
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