It is hard to believe it’s been a year since Marathon Health and Everside Health merged to become one organization, adopting the best practices of the tremendous heritage of both companies to serve our patients with the best possible care. The merger, announced in February 2024, joined two leaders in advanced primary care to deliver comprehensive healthcare for more than 3 million covered lives, through more than 750 health centers, and across 41 states with nationwide virtual care — up from 2.5 million covered lives across 680 health centers in the year since merging.
“At the heart of advanced primary care and the results it drives, is a consistent and continuous experience for providers and patients alike,” said Dr. Jeff Wells, CEO and cofounder of Marathon Health. “To realize the potential of our expansive footprint, for the organizations and members we serve, we completed a rapid and responsible integration of our teams, operations, and systems – including our EHR and other care enablement technology.”
With our merger now complete, we find ourselves reflecting on the experience — as well as looking ahead to what’s next.
Integrating two companies without losing what makes them special is a mountain of a task — our third wave of health center migration alone took an investment of more than 10,000 training hours by our teammates across the nation. It’s hard work and intimidating to set out upon. Our clinical and business teammates, along with our client partners, brought to the project careful planning, determination, and flexibility to deal with the unexpected bumps along the way. They made it possible to do this in only a year while maintaining our historically strong levels of teammate and client retention and learning new lessons along the way.
We are grateful and humbled by the excellence they bring to our mission each day.
A Merger in Numbers
According to PWC, the average duration for post-merger integration is one and a half years, with some taking more than two years. In the one year since our merger was announced, we’ve completed our integration, meaning our entire organization is operating in our Ignite ecosystem, a single technology platform that brings benefits to our care teams, patients, and client partners. Our teammates and partners worked together to migrate:
According to PWC, the average duration for post-merger integration is one and a half years, with some taking more than two years. In the one year since our merger was announced, we’ve completed our integration, meaning our entire organization is operating in our Ignite ecosystem, a single technology platform that brings benefits to our care teams, patients, and client partners. Our teammates and partners worked together to migrate:
- 5 million patients and health records
- 1,290 clinical teammates
- 368 health centers serving 363 clients
Over the same period we also achieved:
- 96% client retention (stable year-over-year)
- 90% provider retention (improved year-over-year)
Wells continued, “We’re proud of the integration’s pace, and especially, the faith and patience of our clients and other partners throughout. We also recognize that ensuring first-rate operations and high-quality care is work that is continuous.”
Teammate and Client Experience
Relationships are at the core of what we do. We knew that no integration would be a success if it came at the cost of that central pillar of our care model. We set an ambitious timeline for integration, but knew it had to protect and value the teammates, providers, patients, and clients involved. From training to operations and migration management, we set constant attention to creating a positive experience for our key partners. Some key contributors, stakeholders, and partners were kind enough to share their experience:
"The successful completion of this integration marks a significant milestone. By uniting our strengths, we have built a more innovative and dynamic organization that is better equipped to deliver enhanced value and care to our patients and clients. As we move forward together, our commitment to improving lives and fostering growth remains at the forefront of everything we do.”
Meghan MacDerment, SVP of Integration and Transformation, Marathon Health"I actually spoke with three employees on the day of our migration about booking appointments and all three managed to create Marathon accounts before I even spoke or visited them. Two of those employees didn't even have Everside accounts. I think that illustrates the ease of accessing Marathon's patient portal."
Christopher Wexler, Benefits Manager, Pasco County BOCC
From Marathon clinicians and health center staff
Every EHR transition comes with its challenges, and with the breadth and scope of this transition, this one was no exception. However, our collective dedication to problem-solving and continuous improvement carried us through, making us stronger as a team:
“With this transition, our clinical teammates can now essentially all speak the same language, ensuring more efficient, data-driven, and comprehensive patient care. Thanks to the hard work and meticulous planning of our migration team, we executed this transition at lightning speed. A huge thank you to all our clinical teammates for their resilience, collaboration, and unwavering commitment to clinical excellence.”
Meaghann Bernardy, MD, National Medical Director, Marathon Health“What worked best for me was attending live classes and making notes before navigating the training environment. I then re-watched the videos later when I could stop them as I worked in the training environment. This process let me really feel like I knew what I needed to do in the new platform.”
Marathon Provider“The communications, tools, and resources provided helped ease the transition.”
Marathon Provider“Help was readily available! It helped to keep my team’s anxiety down.”
Marathon Provider
Able to serve more patients across the country
Ultimately, healthcare is local. The quality and success of a care model or strategy rests on the direct relationship between patient and provider. In order to deliver advanced primary care to as many patients as possible, each and scale are important supports to the local nature of healthcare.
Our new organizational footprint stretches across 41 states for in-person care — and all 50 for virtual care — serving millions of patients and positioning us to reach more patients than ever before. Additionally, our open-access network model now has nearly 100 health centers across the nation, bringing meaningful care to people at home, work, or while traveling.
Moving Forward as One Marathon Health
With our merger complete, we turn our full focus on what’s ahead. The U.S. healthcare system is under immense stress — and employers and unions are feeling the pressure of it. We expect that patients and organizations will continue to see ever rising costs and bad outcomes — which further drive-up costs — compound with worsening mental health, specialty drug costs, and more. The market will need comprehensive but nimble solutions to problems caused by real or potential changes to regulations, payment systems, and the continuing cracks of a stressed system. Which reminds us of the original intent of our merger: to deliver demonstrably improved health outcomes and meaningful cost savings to patients and client partners.
This year and beyond we will continue to provide advanced primary care to our patients, improving how they experience healthcare, and helping live with improved health and wellness. We’re keeping our commitment to being a collaborative, expert partner for our client as they navigate the broken healthcare landscape. And we’ll continue to improve and grow how we deliver a broad range of care from advanced primary care to mental health, occupational health, musculoskeletal, and more.