agilon health Lends Helping Hand To Physicians During COVID-19 Crisis

LONG BEACH, Calif., April 9, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders are revealed during a crisis -- and during the COVID-19 emergency, agilon health, an organization that champions the role of independent physicians, is seeing its physician partners rise to the challenge. In an effort to help protect and support healthcare workers, agilon health is providing critical resources and support to physician practices.

Ben Kornitzer, M.D., agilon health Chief Medical Officer, stated, “We are humbled by the extraordinary lengths our courageous physicians are taking to properly treat patients. agilon health is concerned about the safety of physicians and their staff who stand in the line of fire. Also, the disruption of managing this crisis is challenging and threatening the sustainability of physician practices.”

agilon health is taking the following steps:

• Supporting deployment of tele-health capabilities;
• Hosting a daily “huddle” call with physicians – allowing them to discuss concerns and share best practices;
• Providing national experts in epidemiology, palliative care, and provider well-being as resources;
• Creating an online “connected community” of physicians with the latest clinical protocols and guidelines;
• Leveraging our analytics platform to identify seniors at greatest risk – allowing physicians to deploy care managers to assist them;
• Sharing protocols to care managers -- including a checklist for the care of homebound patients with recommendations about social distancing, hand hygiene, and other safety measures. Care managers will ensure patients have access to medical services and basic needs (food, medications, supplies and social interaction). They also assist patients with tele-visit technology, and remind them to contact PCPs before going to the emergency room.
• Providing practices with customized patient-facing email templates highlighting safety tips and office guidelines;
• Sharing with physicians timely information about new regulatory changes;
• Advocating for independent physicians on the front lines by requesting financial assistance from the federal government. agilon health and other like-minded organizations are urging Congress and the Administration for assistance to avoid the risk of widespread physician practice failure.

Independent physician practices typically do not have assets needed to get through a crisis of this magnitude. However, agilon health is ensuring that physicians practices have resources needed to weather this storm.

agilon health works with independent physician practices in California, Hawaii, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania, serving over 1,500 primary care physicians caring for 150,000 plus Medicare Advantage patients.

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SOURCE agilon health