Ovation Benefits in Farmington says it is a step closer to its broadening its model for cutting employers’ healthcare bills with its purchase of an Atlanta firm that promotes a similar employee health-improvement model.
Ovation President and CEO William Carew said the company paid an undisclosed sum for Health Navigators LLC.
As part of the deal, Health Navigators co-founder Charles Taylor, M.D., joins Ovation as chief medical officer. Another co-founder, Peter Townsley, becomes Ovation’s director of workforce health improvement programs.
Started in 2002, Ovation’s lineup consists of consumer driven and incentive-based health plans for employers. Ovation represents more than 250 employers and more than 120,000 members in all 50 states and 14 countries.
Health Navigators works with employers to intervene with high-risk employees and their spouses through a coordinated curriculum of evidence-based education and support that delivers measurable reductions in the critical risk factors that drive poor health, reduced productivity and high medical expenses.
“There is a huge difference between a medical-based chronic disease prevention service and the so-called ‘wellness’ movement,” Taylor said in a statement. “Together, we can make a real difference.”
