Summit CityMD Strives to Lower Cost of Care With New Delivery Model

CEO Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger shares the accomplishments of the merger between Summit Medical Group and CityMD after its first year.

It's been one year since physician-owned Summit Medical Group and urgent care provider CityMD merged into Summit CityMD to offer an integrated delivery model to patients in New York and New Jersey.

The organization's combined primary care and urgent care model has aimed to enable seamless care for patients with lower costs and greater outcomes, according to Summit CityMD leadership. CEO Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger, MD, tells HealthLeaders what he's most proud of about merging the organizations is that the union made it possible "to create that healthcare model and that drive for all patients, from the millennial to the senior."

"For us, it's keeping the patient within the ambulatory sector," Le Benger says. "We have found … that even if you increase ambulatory care, you lower the inpatient side of it. Overall, you do lower the cost of care immensely."

Through the COVID-19 pandemic, Summit CityMD has been able to care for patients in the New York metropolitan area through widespread COVID-19 testing and it "cared for hundreds of thousands more patients over the past five months," a press release said.

"Our urgent care line of business was totally inundated with COVID patients. We took care of the cluster in Corona, Queens that went to Elmhurst hospital," Le Benger says. "We were [testing] almost 17,000 patients a day just in our urgent care market."

Through the pandemic, Summit CityMD continues "to have [an] 89 Net Promoter Score," Le Benger says. The high customer experience rating "means my doctors were apathetic, altruistic, and they gave the care that they needed, no matter what, to these patients, as well as all providers and staff."

According to the press release, Summit CityMD hopes to continue to grow its hubs and expand locations through New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area to "continue its mission to build healthier, kinder communities." Patient benefits from the first year have included co-located physicians and specialists in New Jersey, the growth of primary care providers in the New York market, and expansion of urgent care.