Support MDs and APCs To Deliver Value-Based Care

Value-based care over the past 15-20 years has focused on managing health care costs as efficiently as possible while also improving patients’ health, outcomes, and experiences.

At ApolloMD, value-based care goes further.

The links between cost, the quality of care, and patient experiences are guided by a companywide, operational philosophy that delivers broad support to the physicians and advanced practice clinicians who provide frontline care every single day.

“ApolloMD, believes in doing what’s right for our health care professionals who take care of the communities we serve,” says Michael Dolister, MD, ApolloMD CEO. “Our physicians and advanced practice clinicians feel supported, trained, rewarded, and professionally enriched and educated, which shows in the quality of care they provide to our patients, care that delivers measurable and manageable value.”

Performance-based care defined

ApolloMD’s approach to value-based care is highlighted in this video by Regional Vice President Ayaz Pathan, MD, MBA.  Like his executive peers, Dr. Pathan is both a corporate officer and a practicing emergency medicine physician.

ApolloMD encourages hospitals and health care systems to weigh their options carefully within the contexts of value-based care when choosing physician and medical professional services providers to staff, operate, and lead their departments and specialties.

Key offerings and differentiators to consider when choosing a practice management provider, include company ownership, operational philosophies, continuing education and wellness programs, deeply ingrained practices that support front-line clinicians, and the company’s definition of and adherence to quality outcomes.

Private corporate ownership

In 2020, Forbes writer Sachin H. Jain raised a key question about the corporate structures and financial aims of companies that are providers of health care services/staff to hospitals and medical centers: “In an era when many ‘value-based groups’ are backed by venture capital, owned by private equity firms, or publicly traded, is the decision to deny a specialist referral or the latest new pharmaceutical being made to optimize care or to protect quarterly earnings?”

ApolloMD is unique in the industry because it is not only physician-led and operated, but it is also privately held with no private equity or venture capital backing. All growth over 40 years has been organic, not fueled by mergers/acquisitions or outside investors. All full-time employees have the opportunity to claim a personal stake in the company’s growth, success, and profits.

“Being an employee owner is more than a piece of paper,” says Yogin Patel, MD, MBA, ApolloMD President. “It’s loyalty. ApolloMD physicians, APCs and employees who decide to become owners are both vested and invested in the success of their careers, their patients, and the company’s financial health and growth. Opportunities for ownership are great, not only for recruiting clinicians to the communities that they serve, but also for keeping them long-term, because they’re tangibly invested in their community.”

Executives on the front lines of care

“All ApolloMD physician and advance practice clinician executives work clinically on a monthly basis, which is a huge differentiator,” Dr. Dolister points out. “The reason for this is that we never want to ask our frontline physicians and practitioners to do anything that our leaders are not already doing themselves. All clinical executives, including myself, work side-by-side with our providers at our partner facilities. Not only does this allow us to keep our clinical skills sharp, but it also enables us to understand the communities that we serve.”

Additionally, health care is changing more rapidly than in recent memory due to advances in technology and evolution of protocols, especially in the wake of COVID-19. Having practicing executive physicians working on the front lines is incredibly important.

Performance-based compensation

With each new engagement, ApolloMD works hand-in-hand with its partner hospitals and health systems to identify their unique health care quality parameters and to meet dual needs of health care partners and the communities they deserve. Each partner’s metrics are included in ApolloMD’s compensation models and partner facility agreements.

Often, the metrics of a hospital’s contracted, or employed, physicians are diametrically opposed to what the hospital is trying to achieve from a metrics standpoint. ApolloMD eliminates this issue by meeting with our partner hospitals and health systems to see what is most important to them. The metrics are then built into the agreements with our physicians, as well our agreements with our hospital and health system partners. This aligns the goals of ApolloMD clinicians with the goals of our hospital partners.

“We truly listen to what our partners are trying to achieve and then put our money where our mouth is, not only buy putting a significant portion of the physician compensation at risk for meeting the parameters, but also by taking it a step further, by putting money at risk in our partner facility agreements, if there is a subsidy involved,” explains Dr. Patel.

Other ApolloMD value-based care differentiators? ApolloMD clinicians are not forced to sign non-compete agreements. It is the firm’s way of demonstrating to their partner hospitals that they will “earn it every day.”

The company provides ongoing health care education and mental health resources for all employees in support of work-life balance. Throughout the company’s history, it also has embraced an in-network strategy with major payors of its hospital partners to support seamless, hassle-free coverage for patients and the company’s clinicians.

ApolloMD lives its vision statement: “Healthy Clinicians. Healthy Patients. Healthy Communities.” In short, that’s the definition of value-based care.

Sources:
1Teisberg E, Wallace S, O’Hara S. Defining and Implementing Value-Based Health Care: A Strategic Framework. Acad Med. 2020 May;95(5):682-685. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000003122. PMID: 31833857; PMCID: PMC7185050.

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    Welcome to ApolloMD

    Private, Independent Group with No Outside Ownership.

    ApolloMD is entirely owned by our physicians, advanced practice clinicians, and key business team members. We started in 1983 by partnering with a nonprofit health system, and we are proud of our history as a completely private, independent group for the last four decades. We have never accepted outside ownership.