A surgeon wellness vendor built for the realities of the OR.
For Chief Wellness Officers running surgeon burnout programs: a credentialed clinical channel with clinicians who understand operating-room culture, session formats that fit a surgical schedule, and reporting that aligns with ACS and AANS well-being frameworks.
via telehealth
licensed clinicians
and 3 hours
out-of-network
A credentialed clinical channel for the surgeon wellness program.
This page is for Chief Wellness Officers, surgical department chairs, and well-being committees who already run a surgeon burnout program and need a clinical vendor that goes deeper than awareness campaigns and a screening tool. 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 contracting system. There is no third-party broker layer. Surgeons are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and structurally outside the system-sponsored benefits stack by design.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals, credentialed through CEREVITY's process, and many have treated surgeons before. They understand the operating-room culture, the call burden, and the specific reasons a surgeon will not engage with a channel that feels connected to the department. CEREVITY exists because most system wellness infrastructure was scoped for the general workforce, and the surgeon tier needs something built differently.
The surgeon you most need to reach is the one least likely to use the system EAP.
The reasons your surgeons do not engage with the EAP or the wellness portal are not failures of either. They are inherent to how those systems were scoped, and to a professional culture where seeking help is read as a threat to standing.
Surgeons present with a recognizable clinical profile: high-functioning anxiety maintained at significant personal cost, the cumulative weight of adverse outcomes and complications, decision density across long cases, and the specific isolation of being the person in the room who cannot show doubt. These are not workforce-wide concerns the EAP roster was built to address.
The barrier is not access; it is consequence. In the landmark study of suicidal ideation among American surgeons, 60.1 percent of surgeons with recent suicidal ideation were reluctant to seek help specifically because of concern it could affect their medical license. A channel that feels connected to the department, the credentialing file, or the licensing body is, for this population, a channel they will not use until a situation is already acute.
What changes when the channel is built around this profile: credentialed clinicians with experience treating surgeons, session formats long enough to do depth work, scheduling that respects call and block time, and a confidentiality posture that gives the system no visibility into who has engaged or with what. Aggregate, de-identified reporting can be structured to fit the ACS and AANS well-being frameworks your program already reports against.
What CEREVITY clinicians actually treat in the surgeon tier.
The clinical scope is built around the presenting profile of practicing surgeons, not the workforce-wide profile an EAP is built for.
Adverse outcomes and complications
A complication or an unexpected death on the table carries a clinical aftermath that surgical culture rarely makes room for. The second-victim pattern is real, treatable, and usually invisible to the department.
High-functioning anxiety
Performance maintained at cost. The case goes well, the M&M is clean, and the cost is invisible until it is not. Common across early-career and senior attending surgeons alike.
Call burden and chronic fatigue
Recovery capacity goes first under a sustained call and block schedule, then judgment and home life follow. Different from acute stress, and treated differently.
Litigation and malpractice stress
A malpractice claim can run for years and produces a stress syndrome with symptoms resembling PTSD, independent of the eventual finding. The clinical toll deserves a confidential channel.
Identity fusion with the role
Decades of being defined by the operating room means separating self from role becomes its own clinical project, particularly approaching the loss of operative privileges or retirement.
Decision and judgment fatigue
Long cases compress hundreds of consequential decisions into hours. The cumulative cost eventually shows up, and not always in the obvious places.
Leadership and chair transitions
Division chief, department chair, surgical director. The transitions into and out of these roles are clinical events, not just career events, and the isolation is itself treatable.
Substance use as a coping pattern
Alcohol and other substances often enter as a way to decompress from the intensity of surgical work. CEREVITY treats this as a clinical issue early, and refers to the appropriate monitoring channel where impairment-level concerns arise.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most wellness programs offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because different kinds of clinical work need different amounts of time. The choice is made between the clinician and the surgeon, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session rather than broken across weeks.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats, the 50-minute, the 90-minute, and the 3-hour, can exist on the same network.
Ready to scope a surgeon-tier briefing?
Briefings are scoped to your system. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials, including how reporting can align with the ACS and AANS frameworks your program uses.
Request a briefingHow a surgeon gets matched, in five steps.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a practicing surgeon.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. The form is operated by CEREVITY, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician in the network is matched to the surgeon based on the review. The surgeon receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The surgeon schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for Hospital System Surgeons.
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a leadership-tier offering for surgeons. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier point solution | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between hospital system and roster of contractors; scales well to workforce-wide coverage | Single-vendor platform with W-2 or contracted clinician pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships, no broker layer |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability; optimized for speed-to-first-session | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review of intake by network leadership against active capacity |
| Intake and scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line; verbal scheduling on callback | App-based intake; in-app scheduling | Network-operated intake; direct online scheduling, no phone handoff |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute; capped session counts per issue | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats; no employer-imposed cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable workforce concerns; intentionally generalist | Workforce-wide therapy and coaching, with executive tier branded on top | Built around presenting issues specific to Hospital System Surgeons |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy; modality-agnostic roster | Generalist therapy; some specialty referral | CBT, DBT, and psychodynamic clinicians, matched to presenting issue and modality preference at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density; varies by region | National via telehealth, with roster density variation | Nationwide via telehealth across all 50 states |
| Payment model | Hospital System-sponsored; covered through benefits plan | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay; out-of-network; structured through partnership agreement |
| Hospital System visibility | Aggregate utilization reporting; broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement and utilization metrics | Administrative reporting only; no clinical content visible |
| Where each model fits | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing care with executive add-on | Hospital System Surgeons, end-to-end |
What the hospital system sees, and what the hospital system does not.
For a surgeon-tier-tier mental health channel to function, the participating surgeon has to trust that engaging with it does not create hospital system visibility into their care. CEREVITY is designed 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 surgeon's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named surgeon has scheduled, attended, or engaged with care.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, diagnostic information, or progress data.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians in the network 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 is not transmitted to the partner organization, 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 and are not shared with the partner organization. The administrative layer is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed against the network side 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 explicitly, in writing, before the partnership goes live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a surgeon-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first surgeon in care. Here is how CEREVITY runs that period.
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 on your side. The Business Associate Agreement, where applicable, is executed in this window.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list in the format your administrative systems support. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path that runs at the point of intake. No clinical data flows backward; only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, surgeon-tier-appropriate internal comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Your team adapts it to your voice. The communication is 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 of each intake. By day 30, the partnership is operational and your internal owner has a quarterly review cadence with the CEREVITY partnership lead.
The business case for the Chief Wellness Officer.
Three axes the wellness office, the surgical chair, or the C-suite can defend in a budget conversation. The numbers will vary by system; the structural argument does not.
Surgeon retention is a per-departure problem, not a workforce problem.
A single unplanned surgeon departure costs the system in recruiting, lost case volume, service-line disruption, and the load placed on remaining surgeons. Replacing a surgeon is among the most expensive turnover events a system absorbs. A clinical channel built for the realities of surgical practice pays for itself across very few prevented departures.
Surgeon capacity is a leveraged input.
A surgeon running below capacity is not a contained loss. It is a leveraged loss across every case they carry, every trainee they supervise, and every downstream service the OR feeds. Recovery of clinical capacity flows through the whole surgical line.
Recruiting and the well-being signal.
Surgeons evaluating a position increasingly weigh a system's well-being posture. A named, confidential, credentialed surgeon mental health channel that goes beyond awareness programming is a differentiating signal in a tight surgical recruiting market.
Questions surgeons and their teams ask first.
CEREVITY is a clinical service, not a framework, and it is designed to sit underneath the well-being structures your program already reports against. The American College of Surgeons runs a Surgeon Well-Being Program organized around education, resources, and advocacy, and has published workplace standards meant to be incorporated into departmental policy. The AANS has published its own data on neurosurgeon and resident burnout. CEREVITY's aggregate, de-identified utilization reporting can be structured so it maps to the well-being metrics your program tracks against those frameworks, without ever exposing individual participation.
No. Administrative reporting only. The system receives confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals and aggregate utilization where contractually appropriate. The system does not see whether a specific named surgeon 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.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals credentialed through CEREVITY's process. Many have direct experience treating surgeons and physicians, and understand operating-room culture, call structure, and the specific dynamics of surgical practice. Matching takes specialty and clinical fit into account.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network operate 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 system's structure. Whether a given agreement applies is a legal determination made with your counsel.
CEREVITY is a confidential therapy channel, not a fitness-for-duty or credentialing process, and it does not feed the credentialing file. Clinicians remain bound by their licensure-specific mandatory reporting obligations, including duties around danger to self or others and suspected abuse. CEREVITY is not a reporting workaround and does not represent itself as one. Where impairment-level concerns arise that point toward a physician health program or board involvement, that remains the appropriate channel.
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 surgeons require.
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 system; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your system. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your system. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the surgeon wellness 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 Hospital System Surgeons-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
