CEO Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger shares what the integrated organization has planned for 2021.
August marked 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.
In an interview that month with HealthLeaders, Summit CityMD CEO Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger shared how the organization was caring for patients during the COVID-19 pandemic through widespread testing and integrated care.
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Since then, Summity CityMD has continued to care for patients, while planning for growth in 2021.
Le Benger recently spoke with HealthLeaders again to share what the organization has planned for this year in addition to continuing COVID testing, treatment, and administering vaccines.
"We strive to take care of the patient no matter what that issue is," Le Benger said. "We developed a care management model with the right data analytics to get us the best results for that patient population."
In 2020, Summit CityMD added 300 additional providers to the network to care for patients in New York and New Jersey, and Le Benger said the organization plans on adding more.
"We are going to build an integrated model in Manhattan, in the [outer] boroughs, as well as on Long Island and in Westchester [County]," Le Benger said. "We have a plan to, at least in the next year, grow the Long Island marketplace between 100 and 200 providers, as well as the Westchester marketplace."
According to Le Benger, through a "hub and spoke" approach, Summit CityMD will build major hubs in Long Island and Westchester, as well as mini hubs across New York City, including on the Upper East Side, Upper West Side, and in the Flatiron District.
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Summit CiyyMD will also be focusing on expanding their technological capabilities this year.
"We're continuing our growth, as well as continuing our digital transformation into having the best data analytics profile that we can have for managing those populations," Le Benger said.
The organization will be also "moving to fee for value," he noted.
"We are also in the process of bringing out our phone digital app that will be multifunctional for the patients and make it convenient for scheduling virtual, pre-registration, [and filling] pharmaceuticals," Le Benger said. "We have all this coming out probably within the end of the first quarter of 2021."
He continued: "We have done a Herculean effort to help manage COVID throughout this past year and COVID is not going away at least until the third or fourth quarter, if it does go away [this year.] But all the growth that I just stated is with managing COVID throughout at least the first two to three quarters of [this] year."
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Melanie Blackman is a contributing editor for strategy, marketing, and human resources at HealthLeaders, an HCPro brand.
Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Summit CityMD