{"id":32309,"date":"2012-10-12T18:09:44","date_gmt":"2012-10-12T22:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32309"},"modified":"2012-10-12T18:09:44","modified_gmt":"2012-10-12T22:09:44","slug":"free-cardiac-and-spine-surgery-for-walmart-employees-at-six-hospitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/2012\/10\/12\/free-cardiac-and-spine-surgery-for-walmart-employees-at-six-hospitals\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Cardiac And Spine Surgery For Walmart Employees At Six Hospitals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starting next year 1.1 million U.S. Walmart employees and their dependents will be eligible for free heart, spine, and transplant surgery at six highly regarded health care organizations. Walmart employees will have no out-of-pocket costs, including travel, lodging, and food for the patient and a caregiver.<\/p>\n<p>On Thursday the company\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.walmart.com\/news-archive\/2012\/10\/11\/walmart-expands-health-benefits-to-cover-heart-spine-surgeries-at-no-cost-to-associates\">announced<\/a>\u00a0that its &#8220;Centers of Excellence&#8221; program, which had previously provided free transplants to Walmart employees, would expand to include heart and spine surgeries. Here are the six health care organizations involved in the program:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio<\/li>\n<li>Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa<\/li>\n<li>Mayo Clinic sites in Rochester, Minn., Scottsdale\/Phoenix, Ariz., and Jacksonville, Fla.<\/li>\n<li>Mercy Hospital Springfield in Springfield, Mo.<\/li>\n<li>Scott &amp; White Memorial Hospital in Temple, Tex.<\/li>\n<li>Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Wash.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/atul_gawande\/status\/256825649984069633\">tweet<\/a>, noted writer and surgeon Atul Gawande said, &#8220;This will change medicine.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-32310\" title=\"Walmart\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2012\/10\/Walmart-300x120.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"120\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Walmart said that four of the hospitals\u00a0\u2014 Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Medical Center, Scott &amp; White Memorial Hospital, and\u00a0Virginia Mason Medical Center\u00a0\u2014 will provide the cardiac procedures, including coronary artery bypass grafting, heart valve replacement\/repair, closures of heart defects, thoracic and aortic aneurysm repair, and other complex cardiac surgeries. Three of the hospitals \u2014 Mercy Hospital Springfield, Scott &amp; White Memorial Hospital, and Virginia Mason Medical Center\u00a0\u2014 will perform the spine procedures. Mayo Clinic will continue to provide transplants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe devoted extensive time developing Centers of Excellence in order to improve the quality of care our associates\u2019 receive,\u201d said Walmart&#8217;s senior vice president of global benefits, in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.walmart.com\/news-archive\/2012\/10\/11\/walmart-expands-health-benefits-to-cover-heart-spine-surgeries-at-no-cost-to-associates\">a press release.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWe have identified six renowned health care systems that meet the highest quality standards for heart, spine, and transplant surgery. Through these hospital systems, our associates will have no out-of-pocket expenses and a greater peace of mind knowing they are receiving exceptional care from a facility that specializes in the procedure they require. This is the first time a retailer has offered a comprehensive, nationwide program for heart, spine, and transplant surgery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starting next year 1.1 million U.S. Walmart employees and their dependents will be eligible for free heart, spine, and transplant surgery at six highly regarded health care organizations. Walmart employees will have no out-of-pocket costs, including travel, lodging, and food for the patient and a caregiver. On Thursday the company\u00a0announced\u00a0that its &#8220;Centers of Excellence&#8221; program, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[1510,1511,1509],"class_list":["post-32309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cardiac-surgery","tag-cleveland-clinic","tag-geisinger","tag-walmart"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}