December 7, 2020
Written by Dr. Ryan Frazine, Advanced Internal Medicine, Paducah, KY
I’m an independent internal medicine physician with my own practice, Advanced Internal Medicine, in Paducah, Kentucky. My practice has served patients in Paducah for three and a half years. Paducah is a changing medical community. We have two competitive hospitals in our town that employ many of the specialists and physicians in our area. There’s still a good number of independent primary care doctors, like me, who run our own practices.
Three years ago, other independent doctors and I joined a local Accountable Care Organization (ACO). We were excited about the opportunity to come together to offer better care for our patients and leverage our size to compete with hospital employment. However, we didn’t see significant progress in our move to value-based care or a clear vision for how we would get there. At the end of our relationship with our prior ACO, after doing some research, we decided to partner with Aledade.
Working with Aledade has been a completely different experience. From our first kick- off visits we could see that Aledade was different. Aledade had a plan to address our local pain points and worked with us to get things right. Before Aledade, for example, our group of doctors didn’t have a plan for Annual Wellness Visits (AWVs) or HCC coding. We were all trying to tackle them separately without insight into an optimal workflow. With the Aledade App we have actionable data and can target our highest priority patients, to keep them healthy.
I have found that it is possible to participate in value based care and remain independent. I was the solo doctor figuring it out on my own, and it was time consuming and hard. When you partner with Aledade you don’t have to figure things out on your own. Having support in moving to the next level of value-based care has made all the difference. We now have someone from Aledade in our office every single week. They help us stay on track and keep in touch between visits. They’re there to help us break down barriers, so we can provide our patients the best care.
I’m looking forward to the next three years working with Aledade. The changes I’ve seen already in my practice are unparalleled.