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What is direct-to-employer contracting in health care? What are value-based care examples? What are innovative care models?
Jerry Finkel, MD, senior vice president and chief primary health officer at Henry Ford Health, discusses an innovative value-based care program between General Motors and Henry Ford Health that allows GM employees and their families to receive customized health care directly from Henry Ford Health, bypassing traditional insurance models. Dr. Finkel highlights the benefits of this direct arrangement, including enhanced quality of care, cost savings and a concierge service for easier navigation of the health care system. AMA Chief Experience Officer Todd Unger hosts.
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Speaker
- Jerry Finkel, MD, senior vice president and chief primary health officer, Henry Ford Health
Transcript
Unger: Hello and welcome to the AMA Update video and podcast. Today, we're talking about an innovative value-based care program between General Motors and Henry Ford Health. Our guest today is Dr. Jerry Finkel, senior vice president and chief primary health officer at Henry Ford Health in Detroit. I'm Todd Unger, AMA's chief experience officer in Chicago. Dr. Finkel, thank you for joining us today.
Dr. Finkel: Thank you, Todd. Great to be here with you.
Unger: So I'm eager to learn more details about the program that you've got with General Motors. Let's just start with some basics about, how does it work?
Dr. Finkel: Yeah, thanks so much, Todd. This is a really innovative program that allows the General Motors employees and their families to get care from the Henry Ford Health organization. And the arrangement is directly between General Motors and the providers, something that's very unique. Normally, there's an insurance company in between, but in this case, it allows us, really, to customize the benefits that those employees receive from our providers and to do that directly with the employer.
Unger: I'm just curious—you mentioned that typically, there would be an insurance company in the middle—how does that work in terms of the benefits of doing that direct? Does it give them more flexibility and greater insight?
Dr. Finkel: Yeah, Todd, there's so many benefits that really relate to the ability to customize the program specifically for your particular employees. So as an example—and I would love to be able to share two examples. One is that we know how hard it can be to navigate the health care system, the health care delivery system. And what we were asked by GM is to provide a way for their employees to have a simplified way of managing those calls, managing their access to the health care delivery system.
And so we created a concierge line, where when a GM employee calls, their call is routed directly to our concierge line, and they get the kind of assistance that they need to be able to navigate. In addition, we know that that particular population, for example, has musculoskeletal conditions that are at a higher frequency than perhaps a standard group. And so we were able to customize programs that are specifically targeted towards musculoskeletal injuries because it's most pertinent to them, to the employees and to the families that we serve through GM.
Unger: Well, those are two really interesting benefits of this particular arrangement, which has been going on for a few years now. So I'm interested, what are you seeing in terms of results?
Dr. Finkel: Yeah, we've had this program now for six years, and we've just been thrilled with the results. And when I say we, it's a collective we, because General Motors is equally thrilled. I would say that the things that we had hoped to be able to achieve, like enhanced quality—and we're measuring that—we've been able to achieve that, improved cost, improved days on the job, those kinds of things, really, really important, and the quality and the experience that patients are receiving.
And this isn't just us saying—so we have literally been able to do a comparison of a similar group of employees who don't have this particular connected care, what we call Connected Care Program, to be able to show that there are significant savings and significant enhancement in the quality that they receive. It's been very, very good for everyone.
Unger: So I love the fact that you've got this A/B test, for lack of better words, to be able to see and quantify the benefits of this arrangement. Why do you think this arrangement with GM has been so successful?
Dr. Finkel: I would say, probably the best word to describe it is partnership. So it's very unusual to be able to partner directly, the provider with the employer, to make sure that we are making sure that we're addressing all the specific needs of General Motors. And so they've made an investment. We've made an investment. We're committed to one another.
I think that it allows us to customize the program. It allows us to share goals. It allows us to share some of the benefits. It allows us to drive value and also for us to be able to share the benefits of that value. So that partnership is really a differentiator for us.
Unger: Now, speaking of partnership, there are always some risks with this type of value-based care arrangement. Tell us a little bit about the risks and how you are working to avoid them.
Dr. Finkel: Yeah, so there's always risks. So risk is a funny word, right? So there are challenges to make sure that this is going to work effectively. Both organizations have made an investment. And so obviously, we would like to make sure that pays off. General Motors is providing this Connected Care product at a lower cost than some of their other products. So they're investing in the success of this model.
We also are providing additional services and support. And so it does take some investment. In addition, we are sharing the risk of managing this population to a specific cost target. And so there's the risk that we won't be successful, and there's always that risk. So we've been lucky that six years in a row now, we've been able to show that there have been savings, and we've been able to share those savings with General Motors.
Unger: Well, then it definitely seems like this has been a great partnership. And I'm curious, do you think that more companies are going to look for similar arrangements in the future?
Dr. Finkel: I certainly hope so. I think that for companies, and in particular, for larger companies, like General Motors, that have sophisticated capabilities to be able to evaluate their employee population and understand how they can receive the best care, this is a fantastic option, in particular, if you have a large health care organization that covers much of the geography, where their employees live and where they work.
I think that in the future, there might be opportunities even for smaller companies to come together to enjoy the benefits of being able to communicate directly with their providers to help them to understand what's important for you as an employee, as a family, as a corporation. What kind of care would you like to receive? And so I think the motivation is there. I think it's one of those things that will take some time for organizations to get comfortable in order to make sure that they're willing to take on this risk.
Unger: And I think part of, I guess, the secret ingredients of making this work is that Henry Ford has a lot of experience in value-based care. I'm curious, maybe what are some examples of the other things that you're doing in that arena?
Dr. Finkel: Yeah, I mean, there are so many things, Todd. So thank you for the question, for one, because we're so proud of so many of the things that we're doing. A short answer is difficult, but I will tell you that some of the components that really allow us to deliver the entire continuum of care are—and I'll just give you a couple of examples.
Number one is we have a huge commitment to what we call destination care to complex care. So patients that need the most challenging, most esoteric type of care, we have that available. At the same time, we have completely transformed primary care into a very proactive model. So we have a sophisticated algorithm that identifies patients that are at risk. They may not even know that they're at risk yet.
We outreach to them. We make sure that we're bringing them in. We really, really manage their health to the end state of improved wellness. In addition, if they need care right now, we have wonderful options for them. Every one of our primary care providers is able to be able to provide their—excuse me, provide same-day care for their patients, whether it be virtual, by an e-visit or on site.
In addition, we have urgent care centers throughout the Metropolitan Detroit area. And 24/7/365, we have a Henry Ford Medical group provider that's available by virtual visit to receive that care. And we know that when you click on that button, within five minutes, you have a provider to be able to provide the care that you need.
So so many things that we're doing, not the least of which is bringing physicians together, which we think is really, really important, to be able to create an enterprise that allows them to act in a very coordinated and integrated way, managing patients in a way that informs one another about best practices and that allows us to share services to really be able to drive health in our community and for the patients we serve. And of course, that includes our General Motors employees and their families.
Unger: I love those examples, even from the start, the very beginning. Being able to talk to a human being, getting same-day care, virtual care, it sounds like there's just a lot of benefits to the structure of the program that you're doing right now. And I really appreciate you joining us and telling us more about the work that you and Henry Ford are doing.
If you found this discussion valuable, you can support more programming like it by becoming an AMA member at ama-assn.org/join. That wraps up today's discussion. And we'll be back soon with another AMA Update. Be sure to subscribe for new episodes and find all our videos and podcasts at ama-assn.org/podcasts. Thanks for joining us today. Please take care.
Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this podcast are those of the participants and/or do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the AMA.
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