Walmart: Partnering to Create a Game-Changing Healthcare Solution

Improved quality and a better patient experience all while reducing healthcare costs – it’s a goal that many employers are finding difficult to achieve through traditional delivery models. Offering high-quality, affordable healthcare is an important differentiator for employers and can be instrumental in helping them recruit and retain the best. Yet rising costs present a significant challenge. In 2018, Ochsner Health Network (OHN) and Walmart came together with a common ts Walmart and Sam’s Club associates in the New Orleans Metro, North Shore and Baton Rouge communities.

With the new Ochsner Accountable
Care Plan (ACP), Walmart associates
now have a plan that simplifies,
lowers or eliminates copays,
coordinates care and provides access
to thousands of providers.

With the new Ochsner Accountable Care Plan (ACP), Walmart associates now have a plan that simplifies, lowers or eliminates copays, coordinates care and provides access to thousands of providers – including 200 primary care physicians and 1,300 specialists who are part of OHN in the participating regions. In addition to Ochsner hospitals and clinics, included in the plan are St. Tammany Parish Hospital, Slidell Memorial Hospital, along with their aligned community providers in St. Tammany Quality Network and Ochsner Physician Partners. The ACP is available to associates at lower cost than a traditional preferred-provider organization plan.

To ensure that Walmart associates get the right care in the right place at the right time, ACP participants have access to patient engagement specialists via a 24-hour call center designed specifically for plan participants. Patients are directed to the most appropriate care within the network, and a coordinated complex case management program is designed to make sure the individualized needs of each patient are being met.

Notes Lisa Woods, senior director of U.S. Health Care Benefits at Walmart, “Our associates are very important to us, and our Accountable Care Plans are one way we help ensure they and their families receive the highest quality of care. The benefit to patients is significant, and partnerships with providers like Ochsner Health Network help us improve quality for our associates.”