Since the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare consumers' mindsets have evolved — and healthcare organizations need to follow suit. According to McKinsey & Company, health systems that excel at anticipating customer needs will succeed in the "next normal."
During a Becker's Hospital Review webinar sponsored by MDVIP, John E. Schmidt, executive director, health systems at MDVIP, moderated a discussion with two healthcare leaders from CHI Health in Omaha, Neb. — J. Douglas Dunning, MD, family medicine physician, and Ashley Wissink, market director — about the new primary care landscape and best practices for integrating innovative care models into healthcare organizations.
Four key takeaways were:
- Patients are taking control of their healthcare. With increased adoption of HSAs and FSAs, patients are more focused on the aspects of healthcare that are important to them and the services they are willing to pay for. "Patients want convenience, trust and a caring ear," Mr. Schmidt said. "As many as 17 percent of people are actively considering or are in the process of leaving their primary care physician. To get that caring ear, some individuals are willing to invest in a personalized wellness program."
- MDVIP's personalized wellness model delivers a new patient experience. Patients pay an annual membership fee for a highly personalized, preventive care program, and practice sizes are significantly smaller allowing more time for a dedicated doctor-patient relationship. "This approach is a great complement to an organization's primary care portfolio. However, we don't expect all our physicians or all our patients to transition to this model," Ms. Wissink said.
With MDVIP, the patient experience is very different. "All my appointments are 30 minutes long and wellness visits are two hours," Dr. Dunning said. "I see six to eight patients a day and always have several appointments available every day for acute visits. I might receive two after-hours calls each week. That number is low because we take care of issues in a timely way in the office."
- MDVIP is an important option for a health system to offer for both patients and physicians. “With this and other models that we offer, well-being is top of mind. The more unique models that we can have within our system, the better,” Ms. Wissink said. As an example, when Dr. Dunning transitioned to MDVIP at the beginning of 2014, he remained an employee of CHI Health. He believes that the pace of the personalized wellness model has extended his career. "Before MDVIP, I was exhausted, working 10 to 12 hours a day, five days a week and spending several hours on the weekend on documentation. One of the greatest benefits is having more time for my family, myself and my patients. My appointments are unhurried, and patients can see me same day or next day," Dr. Dunning said.
- Before making a shift, organizations must know their market and be open minded. CHI Health thoroughly analyzed its payer mix and market characteristics before offering a personalized wellness model to patients. "MDVIP provides practices with analytics to predict what percentage of a physician's patients will move to the new model. That's been critical to our success and the success of our physicians," Ms. Wissink said. She added, “MDVIP has impressive analytics to lean on, and we felt confident in utilizing the data.”
"MDVIP has been crucial to making this model work well," Dr. Dunning said. "I've been impressed at every turn by the commitment that MDVIP shows not only to the doctors, but to patients as well."
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