Press Releases
IMMEDIATE PRESS RELEASE
CONTACT:
Southwest Health Alliance
Tom Sawyer, President
Peter F. Cerchiara, Board Chair
6910 East Fifth Avenue
Suite 10
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
www.swhealthalliance.org
healthdirections@aol.com
swhealthalliance@earthlink.net
480-970-1955 (v)
480-946-9000 (f)
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SOUTHWEST HEALTH ALLIANCE ANNOUNCES
VALUE PURCHASING PLAN ALTERNATIVE FOR REGIONAL EMPLOYERS
Scottsdale, AZ (December 5, 2001) - A group of southwest employers, represented by the Southwest Health Alliance (an employers' healthcare coalition) in affiliation with HealthEOS - a multi-state-state provider network and medical data management company - have created a new health plan that includes a package of products and services that proactively control costs and improve the quality of healthcare throughout the region. As healthcare premiums spiral upward at alarming rates and provider groups continue to balk at the bureaucracy and restrictions of managed care, the Southwest Health Alliance (SWHA) has worked to identify and sponsor products that will decrease costs, improve quality, and focus on the ultimate concern of employee and employer alike - improving our health and productivity. This plan design will also turn around the focus on:
- Short-term costs of healthcare to a focus on the true, ultimate cost of care denied or of poor quality
- Bureaucratic gate-keeping restriction on healthcare to the timely access to best practices, and
- Associated poor customer service from many HMO, managed-care plans to a focus on patient and provider support for the right care, at the right time, and the right place.
The new HealthEOS services and products are based on a philosophy of driving value (value equals the quality of healthcare divided by the cost) throughout the healthcare system by using sophisticated data management, hands-on clinical interventions and disease management all in one finely tuned package that includes:
- The Care EngineSM Service; an amazing medical advance that combines the power of computer technology with the experience of skilled physicians using the clearinghouse data to identify...
- Misdiagnoses
- Ineffective and or negative drug interaction
- Unnecessary lab tests
- Inappropriate care
- Costly hospital readmissions and repeat outpatient visits, and
- Avoidable emergencies.
- The Care EngineSM Service physicians; who communicate the latest medical protocols, information and recommendations to the employees' treating physicians, and avert costly medical errors, inappropriate drug interventions, and missed treatment opportunities.
- A Pharmacy Benefit Manager; to manage the utilization of pharmaceuticals
- Utilization Review; to monitor the effectiveness of the Care EngineSM Service interventions and case management initiatives
- Case Management and Disease Management services; that supervise high cost disease states such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, chronic pulmonary disease and others.
- A broad-based network of physicians, hospitals, labs, x-ray facilities, pharmacies and other ancillary services locally and nationally,
- A central data clearinghouse/warehouse; for the re-pricing of medical claims, and management of each employee's health care information (medical claims, lab test, drug prescriptions, etc.)
"Finally, employers have the right healthcare plan tools to be cost effective in the long term to control spiraling health care costs, drive better health care management for employers and employees, and support all the stakeholders in our healthcare delivery system, especially the front line physicians who define the healthcare experience for all of us," said Peter Cerchiara, Board Chair of SWHA. "No longer will the purchasers of health care have to stand by helplessly in a sellers market with little information about the true cost, quality and outcomes of the healthcare they finance." Our vision is to refer to health plans not as PPOs and HMOs but as EOSs that stands for Evidence of Safety and Savings; that stands not for health maintenance but for quality improvement in healthcare.
SWHA will have oversight of the product. Its members will determine healthcare quality improvement initiatives/interventions, collaborative relationships with providers and product enhancements. SWHA will be the exclusive distribution point for marketing and sales of the HealthEOS products and services.
"As a result of the application of new technologies, the employers of Arizona now have the unique opportunity to literally change the direction of costs and quality with this unique approach to health care management," states Bruce Lefco, President of HealthEOS. "The old methods of cost control have failed. It's time for the purchasers to drive the solution."
The Southwest Health Alliance is an independent, non-profit coalition of public and private sector employers located in the Southwest region of the U.S. who share a commitment to promote quality, cost-effective health care for its members. Its mission is to measure and improve the health status of the southwestern community through formal studies and health intervention programs designed to:
- Improve quality of health care services
- Manage health care utilization and costs
- Increase consumer and user education
- Implement proactive intervention/programs for the high-risk/high-cost population
HealthEOS is a private sector company that provides regional and national provider network access, information and data management, claims re-pricing services, Pre-certification/Utilization Review services, Case Management and Disease Management, the centralized data warehouse/clearinghouse and the Care EngineSM Service.
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