Why Steward

Steward Health Care is a fully integrated national health care services organization committed to providing the highest quality of care in the communities where our patients live. Steward owns and operates 33 community hospitals across nine states, serves over 800 communities, and has more than 40,000 employees. The Steward network includes multiple urgent care centers, preferred skilled nursing facilities, substantial behavioral health offerings, and more than 7,900 beds under management.

Steward’s unique health care service delivery model leverages technology and care coordination to keep patients healthier and in the community. Steward is recognized as one of the nation’s leading accountable care organizations. Steward hospitals have received the country’s top awards for quality and safety.

 

Steward Medical Group

Steward Medical Group (SMG) is a physician-led, multispecialty practice organization with more than 1,800 directly employed providers and more than 2.2 million patient encounters annually across eleven states. Offering primary care and specialty services, our team of providers work collaboratively to improve patient outcomes through preventative care.

Our physicians and advanced care practitioners provide outstanding, compassionate care in the communities where people live. With hundreds of practice locations, patients and families do not need to travel far from home to receive world class care. As part of an accountable care organization that has received national recognition for its design and performance, our mission is to achieve the highest possible quality at an affordable price and provide the best health care to our patients in a setting close to home with a focus on improving the delivery of health care, and keeping our patients well. Our patients are at the center of all that we do, combining the science of medicine with the compassionate art of healing.

Steward Medical Group is one of the fastest growing health care providers in the country and represents the employed physician group of Steward Health Care. We are committed to the communities we serve, providing the highest level of quality care to many under served populations. We work collaboratively to ensure our patients have an integrated, value driven experience and our strength lies in our commitment to, and success in, treating the complete patient in the most appropriate setting. 

All members of Steward Medical Group are part of Steward Health Care Network (SHCN), our nation-leading accountable care organization and contracting entity.

Steward Benefit Offerings Include

Steward Medical Group offers a variety of benefits including competitive salary and comprehensive benefits package, including some features that are provided at no/low cost and other optional benefits through its preferred brokers. SMG provides a culture of promotion and advancement from within the organization, and incentives for outstanding work and contributions.

* Plans may have individual eligibility requirements, such as minimum hours worked or length of service.

  • Medical
  • Dental
  • Pharmacy / Prescription Coverage
  • 401(k)
  • Deferred Compensation
  • Group Variable Universal Life Insurance
  • Long-term Disability
  • Long term Care
  • Paid Time Off
  • Continuing Medical Education / Individual Physician Expenses
  • Medical Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
  • Dependent Care Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
  • Employee Assistance Program

Voluntary Benefits Include

  • Supplemental Life
  • Supplemental Long-Term Disability
  • Supplemental Long-Term Care
  • Financial Planning Services
  • 529 College Savings Plan
  • Short-Term Disability Insurance
  • Vision Insurance
  • Legal Plan Insurance
  • Home & Auto Insurance
  • Accident Insurance
  • Cancer & Critical Illness Insurance

Community Benefits & Patient Care

SMG enjoys positive relationships with the communities we serve, supporting the local tax base and economy as well as being a vibrant part of our cities and towns. We proudly provide world-class care where our patients live and work. With SMG’s patient-centered model, we strive daily to ensure that patients have the best access to physicians, the highest level of respect and compassion, comfort and privacy in their care and a sense of hope to aid their healing.

Workplace Benefits & Electronic Health Records

SMG’s primary care and specialty practices are supported in well-run offices that manage your billing, oversee patient experience and quality so you can focus on doing what you love best: taking care of patients.

SMG utilizes one of the premier electronic health records systems, allowing us to deliver better patient care. A team of dedicated professionals provide training to ensure optimization in our EMRs.

Physician Support & Leadership

Our physician practices are supported by clinical teams of nurse practitioners, physician assistants and certified nursing assistants who work collaboratively to streamline patient care and are committed to providing patients with the optimal health care experience. SMG’s physician leadership sets the standard for excellence and is dedicated to innovation and technology to advance the delivery of care and inspire best outcomes for our patients; physicians also have direct access to physician leadership.

 

building at night

Steward Health Care Network

Steward Health Care Network (SHCN) provides world class care to more than two million patients annually. SHCN's approximately 5,000 providers include both primary care physicians and a full range of specialists who are committed to keeping our patients healthy and helping them avoid costly hospital visits. Established in 2008 as the physician network for the hospitals of Steward Health Care System, SHCN extends across ten states and takes pride in its community-based care model, which drives value-added tools and services to our communities, patients, physicians and hospitals across the continuum of care.

In addition, SHCN promotes care coordination and collaboration within the network in order to provide high quality, efficient care to patients. With Steward in the community, all residents can be sure that there is a world class doctor close to where you live. The network is also responsible for the implementation and execution of Steward’s managed care contracts, medical management services, quality improvement programs, data analysis and information services.

Health Plan Contracting

All SHCN providers have access to each of SHCN’s system agreements. SHCN has highly competitive rates and terms with the major health plans.

Performance Incentives

SHCN has a robust distribution program that incorporates regular distributions to PCPs and specialists. The model used to calculate payments is developed and approved by physician governance, based on transparent measures and regular reporting. Performance funds are also created using small withholds on HMO risk products which are returned based on performance. Many providers earn back more than 100% of these funds.

Benefits of Joining SHCN

Steward has partnered with two Massachusetts health plans to create Steward Community Health Plans (SCHP). These are community hospital network insurance products that dramatically reduce health insurance costs for individuals and small businesses. By providing care in physicians’ offices and community hospitals, SCHP can be priced up to 30% below current market rates while still providing members with a benefit option that is comparable to the design of other plans.

Medical Malpractice Insurance

SHCN has partnered with TRACO, a professional liability insurance company, to develop affordable options for comprehensive professional liability coverage. TRACO offers a physician friendly approach, premiums that are up to 40% lower than rates offered by commercial insurers, personalized claims management and additional support services.

Population Health & Care Management Support

Through our Population Health and Care Management teams, SHCN manages the clinical needs of cohorts or populations of patients attributed to our network to drive Steward’s overall value proposition – high quality care along with improved/reduced total medical expense. SHCN’s approach centers around the provider and patient, leveraging a multi-disciplinary care team that includes nurse care managers, social workers, pharmacists, wellness coaches and a performance improvement team to help drive quality and clinical outcomes along with providing clinical services to at-risk and high risk patients. This expert staff works centrally and embedded within provider offices, serving as an extension of the office staff to improve performance under all of our programs. We invest in every practice to help all of our providers succeed.

Physician Testimonials

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Apurva Padubidri MD

Apurva Padubidri, MD
Family Medicine, Austintown, Ohio

I joined Steward Medical Group immediately after completing residency, continuing to work with the same hospital and same community that I was raised in and where I trained. Steward being a physician-run organization was very appealing to me. Having the people in charge understand what it really means to treat a patient is important. It results in an understanding of the importance of patient care and also the importance of structure and communication for the practicing physician.

The care model in place by Steward is beneficial for the patient as well as the provider. The organization encourages me to voice my opinion and to participate in critical patient care decision-making. There are committees and contacts in place to encourage a high level of transparency and communication. I am able to have a varied daily schedule which involves seeing my own patients in an outpatient setting, precepting with the residency clinic, giving lectures for didactics, and rounding on the inpatient side with the residents. I also attend meetings both for the residency program and for the hospital. Steward allows you to tailor your practice and your career in the way that you choose.

As far as the patient, Steward provides services within their model and within the community which encourages the use of local providers and services. This is better for the area and also better for the patient, providing patients with great care without having to travel to bigger cities or hospitals.

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John Wain MD

John Wain, MD
Chief of Thoracic Surgery, St. Elizabeth's Medical Center

I came to Steward because the position offered a good opportunity and an opportunity to do good. The "good opportunity" was the chance to work within a physician-led organization providing high quality, efficient and low-cost care to patients close to where they live. The potential of working with an organization that was receptive to input from caregivers, and that was nimble enough to quickly respond to ideas about ways to improve patient care, was unique in my experience with other academic medical centers. Steward provides the environment where new procedures in patient care algorithms can be developed, deployed and their outcome assessed quickly.

The employees within the healthcare system have uniformly been enthusiastic to have new challenges and about new challenges and frontiers in the types of patients and types of procedures that are being performed here. These individuals are also eager to prove that they can achieve the same or better outcomes than employees at other medical centers. This creates a very invigorating and positive work environment in which there is the potential to accomplish a lot. The "opportunity to do good" was the chance to work within the Steward network, which serves a larger and more geographically diffuse population then any single hospital or medical center.

Working within the Steward network, one has the opportunity to be able to reach out and help care for patients at much more distant sites, patients who may not have the opportunity to travel to a more centralized academic institution. At times, this opportunity translates to outpatient clinics or consultations at the patient's home hospital. At other times, it can relate to developing treatment algorithms that can be applied system-wide to specific problems. The opportunity to do good also means the ability to bring procedures and surgical interventions to these individuals, that they would not otherwise have been able to access at their local level.

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Joseph Carrozza MD

Joseph Carrozza, MD
Chief of Cardiology, St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center, Massachusetts

Having spent many years at a large Boston teaching hospital, the opportunity to participate in a different approach to healthcare was the primary reason I embraced the opportunity to join Steward Healthcare and the Steward Medical Group (SMG).

At Steward, the goal is to deliver the same quality healthcare one expects in a major Boston teaching hospital to our diverse communities through the network of Steward hospitals, the Steward Healthcare Network, and the Steward Medical Group. These networks promote service line integration through active physician participation in education, protocol standardization, supply chain management, and quality assurance programs. Rather than duplicating services, consultative programs in areas such as electrophysiology can be provided extramurally by physicians in the Steward Medical Group to a variety of practice venues such as physician offices and community hospitals.

An integrated PAC-s network enterprise systems facilitates real-time exchange of primary data including ECGs, echocardiograms, nuclear images, and angiograms.

Steward Healthcare recognized early on the need to invest considerable resources in programs such as the e-ICU and Home Care which improve patient outcomes without a financial return. This philosophy of healthcare delivery accounts for Steward’s highly successful participation in its Accountable Care Organization. As a physician-run organization, Steward Medical Group values the input of its physicians.

This commitment to physician collaboration has created the environment that has attracted many world-class physicians to Steward. Whether it is doing cutting-edge clinical research, teaching tomorrow’s doctors, or caring for underserved patients, Steward offers its physicians the opportunity to be on the forefront of the future of healthcare today.

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Stefany Godfrey DO

Stephany Godfrey, DO
Family Medicine, Nashoba Valley Medical Center

I am a Family Medicine physician practicing in Groton, MA, affiliated with Steward Nashoba Valley Medical Center. I joined Steward Medical Group in August of 2012 after spending four years in the US Air Force. I grew up in Massachusetts and did most of my training in New England. It was important to me to practice in an area with world class health care and to raise my children in a safe and family-friendly area.

While in the Air Force, both the patients and the physicians were continually moving due to transfers and deployments. Because of this, it was an incredible challenge to communicate with the civilian specialists to whom I referred my patients. I felt the care of my patients was fractionated as I often had an incomplete picture of their health. Much of my time was spent tracking down documents and trying to establish a relationship with the colleagues caring for my patients.

When I was preparing to separate from the military, I specifically searched out a hospital system that had a well-established network of physicians, as well as one that encouraged our patients to stay within this network. There is an abundance of incredible health care options available in Massachusetts. However, trying to coordinate care when patients are being seen in different systems leads to duplication of efforts, the potential for missed follow up opportunities and patient dissatisfaction. Steward has an extensive network of specialists and subspecialists, many of whom travel regularly from St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center to our hospital. We really offer “world class health care where you live.”

Another tenant that our organization embodies is quality health care to all. Steward has been providing “the New Healthcare” for years and we are strongly prepared for Medicare’s Payment Reform. We have been focused on offering quality health care to all patients both through education of our physicians and staff as well as resources integrated in our EMR. An important aspect of my positive work-life balance is our EMR, Athenahealth. Our Steward IT department has worked extensively with me to streamline issues the program had in its interface with the hospital-based Meditech, as well as suggestions to improve the program itself. Being able to log in quickly and from any location as well as setting up templates that are relevant to my practice helps me to keep up on my workload.

I have been very pleased with the accessibility of the leadership in Steward as well as how responsive they have been to the suggestions or needs I have raised. I feel that I have a lot of input into how my practice is managed and I feel that my voice has been heard.

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dr tom gill

Dr. Tom Gill
Chairman of Orthopedics, St Elizabeth's Medical Center

After working at a large downtown academic medical center for more than 20 years, people often ask me "Why did you decide join Steward Health Care and St. Elizabeth's Medical Center?" The truth is, there are multiple answers to that question.

The reason I went into medicine was for one simple reason - to take the best care of patients that I possibly could. While this might seems like an obvious statement, anyone working in the field of medicine today knows that it is not always so easy to do. The opportunity with Steward meant I could dedicate my time to focusing on innovation, team building, and the actual care of our patients.

When asked if I would join Steward and build the orthopedic department at St. Elizabeth’s, I said I would do so under one condition - that all decisions made moving forward would have the patients’ best interests in mind. In other words, I wanted every clinical and administrative decision to be made based on one simple question - "If I was a patient, how would I want to be treated in this situation?" In the past, I have been told that this type of "simplistic" approach was not practical. At Steward, I was given a much different answer: “We couldn't agree with you more - please do it."

And that is exactly the atmosphere that I have been able to create since coming to St. Elizabeth's. I have been given the support to recruit the very best clinicians from around the city, and nationally. I have been able to put together clinical care teams of physicians, physician assistants, medical assistants, and administrative assistants, run by the very physicians that have the ultimate responsibility for their own patients' well-being. What's more, this approach is 100% supported and facilitated by the system and hospital leadership teams. They stand behind every initiative that I try to implement, providing real guidance and administrative support. Their motto is "How can we do better for our patients?”

At the end of the day, what truly sets Steward Health Care and St. Elizabeth's apart from other places I have worked is its people. There is a real shared community among the physicians. I can call any one of them at any time for consultation, support, or advice. I can't walk down the hallways without a smile and greeting from almost everyone I pass. We are all there for one reason, and for one reason only - to give our patients the very best care possible. I go home at the end of day with a smile on my face, knowing I was able to make a difference for my patients, and my team.

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