An innovative health insurance program ensures employees of Northwestern Mutual top-quality care while saving money for the company and clients.

"This is really revolutionary," said Janet Lucas-Taylor, Northwestern Mutual senior director of employee benefits.

She said Northwestern Mutual sought out Centivo to administer the program after finding no interest from other potential health plan administrators.

"They were not interested, because it is new and it's innovative," Lucas-Taylor said. The key is a focus on the primary care physician, who acts as an adviser on health care, she said.

"We really needed a partner who focused on that," she said. "That model is something that Centivo lives and breathes in their model elsewhere in the country."

Lucas-Taylor said Centivo uses claims data from southeastern Wisconsin to look at the quality of physicians by looking at care patterns and efficiency.

"Then we created a network of physicians, eliminating the bottom 25%," she said.

The result is a network of physicians built around quality, she said, so that Northwestern Mutual employees and their families don't have to shop for care.

Northwestern Mutual's Todd Smasal, vice president of total rewards and campus experience, said, "Our employees and their families deserve the highest of value in health care."

He said Northwestern Mutual was proud to partner with Centivo and other companies in southeastern Wisconsin.

"Together, we're committed to supporting the medical providers and health systems delivering high-value care in our communities," Smasal said.

Lucas-Taylor said 40% of eligible employees picked the Centivo quality-based plan.

Centivo's Laurel Pickering, who nominated Northwestern Mutual for the award, said that's the highest percentage enrollment of any of its clients. She said primary care physician visits were above benchmarks, while emergency room visits and hospital admissions were below benchmarks.

Lucas-Taylor said employees and Northwestern Mutual were saving money because of the emphasis on quality primary care physicians. She also said referring patients to the correct specialists was another key.

"It's really this idea of getting the right care at the right time and really focusing our population on the importance of a PCP relationship and also eliminating the need to search for high-quality physicians in the network," Lucas-Taylor said.

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