May 9, 2018
ChenMed Response
8yDear Reviewer,
Ever since reading your post, I have been contemplating and agonizing over some of the content. After much thought, I feel a need to apologize for what you are experiencing in this company and I would like to take responsibility for how you feel. Our Vision of being America’s leading primary care provider, transforming care of the neediest population is a noble one where we are actively pursuing social justice to provide something beautiful to the old, the poor, and the sick. Your review is an example where intent may not always directly match perception at the front lines where our special people work to prevent the sickest patients in the US from getting sicker.
Let me take a moment and address a few of the points you’ve brought up. Regarding our focus on profitability, I believe that every company that is trying to do good needs to make sure they are financially sustainable. With that said, we aim to not focus directly on profitability but rather on the right things that can ensure we have a sustainable business model and can continue to offer our concierge-style care at no cost to our poor, old, and sick Seniors. Our mission is to honor Seniors with affordable VIP care that delivers better health. For this reason, all the market and clinical leaders in the company have similar incentives where less than 10% of their bonuses depend on any financial metric. If there is a focus on profitability, it could be because our model provides such a high level of service at no cost to Seniors. Since our care model has proven to reduce hospitalizations by close to 30% across all our markets, our leaders want to make sure that we are able to affordably offer this level of care to those who need it the most.
Regarding our focus on hospitalizations and ER visits, unlike the healthcare community at large who focus on “sick care,” we believe that most of the impact on a patient’s health can be made before they become catastrophically ill. For this reason, we have our doctors care for 80% fewer patients than the surrounding community physicians, see patients every month, offer no-cost door-doctor transportation, and ask talented PCP-led care teams to focus on preventing really bad events. We believe however that much of what we can do to improve health, we did not learn in medical school. For example, studies show that close to 50% of all cancers are lifestyle related. This percentage is even higher for cardiac events. Because we are leading this evolving field that focuses on prevention, when patients have bad events such as a hospitalizations, our doctors will get together and discuss what we can do to prevent such events in the future. The intent is not to be shaming but to learn, create, and improve. I can imagine however that if the group is discussing one doctor’s particular patients more often than other, one could made to feel uncomfortable. This is not the intent but rather to drive towards better care.
Regarding our focus on service, we believe that without a mindset of service and love, our patients will not trust us. Remember, we are asking them to see us frequently, change their diet, change their lifestyle, and trying to manage their many chronic diseases which often require different medications that need to be taken daily. If we are asking them to make so many changes, they need to trust us. We believe that people trust those that serve and are genuinely empathetic, available, and caring to them. How to serve, be empathy, be available, and express caring are not typically taught in medical school. I experienced this personally when my father who is also a physician was treated impersonally and without gentleness and respect during his cancer treatment while he was fighting for his life. This saddened me greatly. As caregivers, if we are going meet people at their greatest point of suffering, we must be prepared to deeply feel for them and serve them outwardly. I can imagine that our overwhelming commitment to service and love can seem awkward since current healthcare community lets patients down in this regard and it has become the norm. People live for love.
In the end, it seems that we need to do better. I believe that every person who has joined our company yearns to love others, provide for the suffering (in our case the old, the poor, and the sick), and promote health that can prevent bad events. By congregating a group of the most talented and kind people in every market, we are trying to create a company that can do all of the above. Thank you for this reminder that I need to do better in communicating and working our purpose into our actions.