{"id":12854,"date":"2020-04-29T22:39:17","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T02:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/chenmed-preventative-value-based-care-to-fight-covid-19\/"},"modified":"2020-04-29T22:39:17","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T02:39:17","slug":"chenmed-preventative-capitated-care-to-fight-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/chenmed-preventative-capitated-care-to-fight-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"ChenMed: Preventative, Capitated Care to fight COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

Background<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

ChenMed is a family owned, physician run organization that was created to better serve low-moderate income elderly patients. Starting in 1985, Dr. James Chen created ChenMed as a one stop shop where physicians are held accountable for their patients; now ChenMed operates over 65 senior health centers across the US. Their customer based focus meant primary care physicians had panels of 400 instead of the national average of 2,300 patients. This high touch model meant that patients were seen at a minimum of once per month; in comparison, Medicare patients see physicians 2-3 times per year. Physicians were on fixed salary with bonuses as a reflection of performance metrics such as quality and efficiency. Physician pay structure reflects the full-risk, capitation model of ChenMed where preventative value based care is the foundational framework.<\/p>\n

ChenMed has its own EHR system and leverages other hardware and software as educational resources for their patients and tools for their clinical and non-clinical staff. Data is stored on a cloud server hosted by AWS and falls in line with HIPPA requirements. Importantly, the internal IT team acts as a partner to physicians. This means that custom builds and product resources are continually tailored and developed with physicians. These digital technologies help support a healthcare worker\u2019s ability to engage patients. Before COVID-19, a patient\u2019s primary clinical experience with ChenMed mostly took the form of in person meetings (again, at least monthly) and ancillary services to support patient needs. These services included automated prescription delivery, dental services, door-to-door transportation, and alternative therapies to name a few. Because of ChenMed\u2019s focus on patient health outcomes, about 97% of patient care with physicians happened in ChenMed sites while 3% of care was delivered at home through telephonic services.<\/p>\n

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ChenMed in the wake of COVID-19<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

With the Corona virus pandemic that has plagued the globe, ChenMed, like the rest of the world had to adapt. ChenMed put into place an H3 initiative within the company- Happy and Healthy at Home. \u00a0Management reached out to providers and allowed them to expense items that would normally fall outside of traditional, fee for service payment models. As ChenMed receives payment through a capitated model, ChenMed is financially poised to be COVID-19 resistant. Preventative care and patient engagement is part of ChenMed\u2019s history and foundation. That being said, ChenMed\u2019s population is that of highest risk given the data we have thus far.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ChenMed\u2019s patient population<\/span><\/p>\n