Transforming Healthcare with Integrated, Differentiated Experiences

My first six months at CenterWell have been focused on our unique opportunity to transform health by providing a seamless care delivery experience that improves quality and outcomes.

But what exactly is a seamless experience?

Imagine you’re a 75-year-old patient with multiple chronic conditions – hypertension, diabetes – who was referred for home care after a fall that resulted in a trip to the ER. Does your primary care doctor know you’ve been to the ER? Who will follow your care to completion? Will medications from the ER interact with your current prescriptions? Does the nurse coming to your home to provide wound care know your medical history? In many cases, the answer is no, and sometimes key information is stuck in faxes or the electronic records of a different provider or nowhere at all.

This is the unfortunate reality for so many seniors who must navigate a fragmented health care system – between hospitals, in-office visits, surgery centers, rehabilitation, pharmacies and more. Many seniors depend on caregivers who lead their own busy lives, requiring a sacrifice of independence and the need to coordinate with yet another person. Not surprisingly, 56% of consumers find it difficult to coordinate care, and that increases as we age and develop health challenges. There has never been a better time for transformation in senior care.

CenterWell has taken intentional steps over the past several years to build out our care delivery assets with the goal of creating an unmatched experience for patients – something better, something different, and something patients want and need. My colleague, @GeorgeRenaudin, and I are collaborating with our teams to take this even further.

Patients will see results of their feedback and our collaboration firsthand in this year’s Medicare annual election period. A new Humana Medicare Advantage plan member will be able to visit a CenterWell Senior Primary Care location for the first time and experience a streamlined registration process. They will be enrolled and ready to make an appointment – no online account or duplicate forms needed. That’s the differentiated experience we’re creating for our members and patients, because nothing is more frustrating than having to fill out forms to share the same information that was already collected when signing up for the health plan. It’s this kind of collaboration between a health plan (Humana) and a care provider (CenterWell) that will make our patients’ lives easier.

Delivering What Patients Want
Our affordable health plans and coordinated, comprehensive, proactive care are working together with a common goal to make it easier for anyone, even non-Humana plan members, to experience better quality and outcomes.

I’m proud of our forward-thinking approach to better synchronize the health care plan and provider group, allowing us to innovate in ways that can help our other plan and payor partners deliver better care for all seniors. CenterWell is the largest senior-focused, value-based primary care provider in the nation, caring for more than 272,000 patients in a variety of Medicare plans across 15 states. Whether you’re a Humana member or not, you’re welcome at CenterWell. Even more impressive, for Humana members who do use our CenterWell services (primary care, home health, and pharmacy), we have data to show they lead healthier lives, including 22% lower avoidable hospitalizations. This collaboration is a powerful effort that motivates our entire team to reconsider care and experience from a patient perspective.

Where We Are Now
We have an established advantage in CenterWell – beyond our expansive footprint and commitment to quality. Everything we do is designed with seniors in mind – from longer appointments, to wheelchair-accessible scales and chairs that easily convert to exam tables, to convenient locations in underserved communities. We have already added ways to access CenterWell, like through our CenterWell Primary Care Anywhere program, and we want to continue to meet patients when, where, and how they need us. We are eager to invest in our locally integrated model in markets across the country while continuing to provide service on an even broader scale through home health and pharmacy across the nation.

Where We’re Going: CenterWell 2028
What our CenterWell team envisions for patients in the next five years is simple: We want them to feel their health care is personalized TO and FOR them – and delivered when and how they need it.

The opportunity to deliver differentiated integrated care is becoming more relevant, and I’ve seen it for myself in ride-alongs and center visits. I’ve shared my learnings and observations with our teams at all levels of the organization, including associates on the frontlines providing care. In our near future is a truly holistic view of each patient, powered by insights that improve equity, quality and outcomes.  We aspire to meet our patients’ needs for access, experience and value while also creating an amazing place to work for our clinicians.

I’m excited to be on this journey with a team of caring and committed individuals who will continue to advance the clinical, payment, and technology innovations required to make these goals a reality. There are no better colleagues to partner with than George and his team, and together we are transforming health care with integrated, differentiated experiences that will produce better outcomes for our seniors.

For a closer look at interoperability, you can read George’s article, “Interoperability offers transparency and better health outcomes.”

*HUM indv. MA members with >1 CW Pharmacy claim (including Specialty) during 2021 and paneled to Humana-owned Primary Care for entire year, vs. HUM indv. MA members without CW Pharmacy claim (including Specialty) during 2021 that were assigned to a PCO market and were not paneled to CW or Conviva-staffed Primary Care for entire year and not in unattributed arrangement