Current services
Palladian Health is a specialty health management company founded in 1994 as Prism Health Networks in West Seneca, New York. Palladian  currently provides management of specialty health benefits on behalf of nearly 20 clients in the northeastern and southeastern United States. Collectively, these clients have approximately 6 million members covered through Palladian. The specialty health benefits managed on behalf of these clients include physical, occupational and speech therapy, chiropractic, massage therapy, acupuncture, and physical fitness. These specialty health benefits are most commonly utilized by members to manage health conditions related to the muscular skeletal (MSK) system. Health conditions related to the MSK system include both acute injuries such as sprains and strains and chronic conditions that are often related to pain.

Challenges
Financial results achieved by Palladian in the areas of specialty health benefits have been very substantial.  However, these results represent only a small fraction of total health spending by its clients for muscular skeletal (MSK) conditions. Palladian Health has engaged its clients regarding their rapidly escalating medical costs for many diagnostic and intervention modalities related to MSK conditions. Of greatest concern are the trends noted by clients in the use of many modalities aimed primarily at addressing MSK pain for which there is little or no scientific evidence available to support clinical or other benefits. These rising costs are particularly vexing because they do not appear to be achieving their goals of managing MSK pain; in fact, the long-term clinical outcomes for patients with some MSK pain conditions appear to be getting worse.

Opportunities
In response to concerns of rising costs that are not improving care, Palladian has identified areas within MSK pain in which it appears likely that coordination of care can achieve meaningful clinical and financial outcomes. One of the most important examples of this phenomenon appears to be low back pain. Even with numerous imaging and other diagnostic tests for low back pain, its root cause remains unknown. And despite costly and invasive interventions such as medications, injections, and surgical procedures, the long-term clinical outcomes for patients with low back pain are fairly poor. To apply its proven approach to an area within MSK pain that requires immediate attention, Palladian has developed its Coordinated Spine Care (CSC) program.