Physician wellbeing built for the realities of emergency medicine.
A private clinical channel for the physicians staffing your departments through boarding, shift rotation, and the highest burnout rate in medicine. Matched clinicians who understand the specialty. Extended sessions. No group visibility into who has engaged.
A private clinical channel for the physicians in your emergency medicine group.
This page is for medical directors, group presidents, wellness officers, and operations leaders at democratic groups, contract management groups, and hospital-employed emergency medicine departments scoping a physician wellbeing channel that operates outside the group's existing EAP and benefits stack. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the group. There is no third-party broker layer. Physicians are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the group-sponsored channel by design, which is precisely the confidentiality posture a physician population needs in order to engage.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals. Many have worked with physicians and other high-stakes clinicians before and understand shift work, the moral weight of the cases, and the specific way emergency physicians carry what they see. CEREVITY exists because the structural realities of EAP coverage and hospital wellness committees leave the physician tier without an appropriate confidential channel, and because that channel needs to be built differently.
Emergency physicians are not a general workforce, and their burnout is not a general workforce problem.
The reasons your physicians do not engage with the EAP are not failures of the EAP. They are inherent to how it was scoped. The physician tier sits structurally outside what a workforce-wide benefit was designed to address, and the cost of treating it that way is borne by the department.
Emergency physicians present with a recognizable clinical profile: cumulative exposure to trauma and death, moral injury from boarding and resource constraints they cannot fix, circadian disruption from rotating shifts, and a professional culture that rewards absorbing all of it without flinching. These are not the workforce-wide concerns a general EAP roster was built to address. They are the presenting issues of a specialty the hospital depends on.
Physicians also carry a specific fear that seeking care could surface in credentialing, licensing, or peer review. That fear is not irrational, and a benefits channel that does not account for it will sit unused. The confidentiality posture that lets a physician engage at all is not a feature an EAP was built to provide.
What changes when the channel is built around this profile: matched clinicians with experience treating physicians, session formats long enough to do depth work on trauma and moral injury, scheduling that respects a rotating shift calendar, and a confidentiality posture that gives the group no visibility into who has engaged or with what.
What CEREVITY clinicians actually treat in the physician tier.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of emergency physicians, not the workforce-wide profile an EAP is built for.
Burnout and emotional exhaustion
Years of high-acuity shifts erode recovery capacity until the work itself starts to slip. Different from acute stress, and treated differently, with clinicians who understand the specialty.
Moral injury
Boarding, throughput pressure, and resource limits force decisions that conflict with what good care would be. The gap between the standard a physician holds and the conditions they work in is its own treatable injury.
Cumulative trauma exposure
The deaths, the codes, the cases that do not leave. Most physicians compartmentalize and work the next shift. The unprocessed version of that exposure accumulates and has a clinical signature.
Shift work and circadian disruption
Rotating nights and irregular schedules degrade sleep architecture over years. The result is not just fatigue, it is a measurable mood and cognitive cost that compounds across a career in the specialty.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance maintained at cost. The department runs, the metrics look fine, and the personal cost is invisible until it is not. Common in physicians carrying years of unspoken strain.
Second victim and adverse outcomes
A bad outcome, a missed diagnosis, or a case under review leaves a physician carrying it largely alone. The isolation of the second-victim experience is itself a treatable issue, and one most physicians have nowhere to bring.
Litigation and peer-review stress
The chronic stress of a malpractice claim or a credentialing review runs alongside the clinical work for months or years. It is a particular kind of load that few people outside medicine understand.
Career and identity strain
Reducing shifts, considering leaving clinical medicine, or facing the end of a career in the specialty are clinical events, not just career events. The identity-fusion with the work makes the transition its own clinical project.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most benefits programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time, and a physician's schedule does not always cooperate with a standard hour. The choice is made between the clinician and the physician, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care here.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour can hold.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. The 50-minute format handles ongoing work, the 90-minute format gives room for deeper sessions, and the 3-hour format exists for intensive work that does not fit a standard hour. That is the structural reason all three formats can exist on the same network.
Ready to scope a physician-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your group. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the shape you are evaluating.
Request a briefingHow a physician is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for an emergency physician.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. Operated by CEREVITY, not a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. The step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the physician. They receive the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
Scheduling runs directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for Emergency Medicine Physicians.
An evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a physician-tier-tier offering for physicians. Both models have a place; they are designed for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between group and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake and scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around Emergency Medicine Physicians presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Group-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Group visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | Emergency Medicine Physicians, end-to-end |
What the group sees, and what it does not.
For a physician-tier-tier channel to function, the participating physician has to trust that engaging with it does not create visibility into their care. CEREVITY is built around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named physician's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named physician has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope in writing before the partnership goes live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a physician-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first physician in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network and establishes the verification path at intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, physician-tier-appropriate comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Designed to be received without stigma.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30, the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the medical director and group leadership.
Three axes a medical director, a group president, or a wellness officer can defend in a budget conversation. The numbers will vary by group; the structural argument does not.
Physician retention is a per-departure problem, not a workforce problem.
Recruiting and onboarding a board-certified emergency physician is a significant cost, and burnout is a leading driver of physicians reducing hours or leaving clinical practice. The economic impact of physician burnout has been estimated in the billions annually across the US healthcare system through turnover and lost clinical hours. A channel built for the realities of the specialty pays for itself across very few prevented departures.
Physician capacity is a leveraged input to the whole department.
A physician running at reduced capacity is not a contained loss. It flows downstream through throughput, through the residents and advanced practice clinicians they supervise, through patient experience, and through the colleagues who absorb the coverage. Recovery of clinical capacity flows back through the entire department.
Recruiting and group reputation in a tight market.
With a projected physician shortage and active competition for emergency physicians, candidates increasingly evaluate how a group treats its people. A named, confidential, physician-tier mental health channel is a differentiating signal in recruiting and a credible answer when a candidate asks what the group actually does for its physicians.
Questions physicians and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your group's structure.
No. Administrative reporting only. The group receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. The group does not see whether a specific named physician has scheduled, attended, or engaged, what clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned. This is contractually scoped before the partnership goes live.
CEREVITY is a private-pay channel of care, not a part of credentialing, licensing, or peer review, and does not report into any of those processes. Clinicians are bound by their licensure-specific obligations. The confidentiality posture is precisely what allows a physician to engage early, before a concern becomes the kind of event those processes are built to address.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are bound by their licensure-specific mandatory reporting obligations, and CEREVITY does not represent itself as a way around them. For concerns that rise to an impairment level, the appropriate established channels, including any physician health program, remain in place. CEREVITY is designed to complement those pathways, not replace them.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture a physician population requires in order to engage.
Pricing depends on the shape of the engagement, the size of the eligible physician population, and how the group administers benefits. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that, not the other way around.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [email protected] directly. Briefings are scoped to your group; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your group. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your group. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the physician channel you are evaluating.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and Emergency Medicine Physicians-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
