HealthCare Partners Medical Group: safeguarding health, delivering value.

Health care benefits have become a lightning rod for discontent between employers and their workers. It's no wonder. With California's challenging economic climate, and the cost of health care benefits escalating--for employers and employees alike--corporations, individuals and families have been feeling beleaguered. Health coverage costs continue to rise, cutting corporate profit margins and threatening the viability of some firms. Employees face higher contributions to their health care plans, often teamed with higher deductibles and higher copays for medical services and medications.

Delivering Value

While physicians cannot directly lower the cost of health insurance premiums, a medical group such as HealthCare Partners can help employers and employees by ensuring that patients get the most for their health care dollars. For employers seeking to optimize their employee benefit plans, working with cost-effective, high-quality provider organizations such as HealthCare Partners makes sense. Health plans may develop benefit packages, but it takes primary care doctors, such as those at HealthCare Partners, to maximize those benefits for the patient.

Patient Centered Care

"HealthCare Partners delivers true managed care to PPO, EPO, fee-for-service and HMO patients," says Robert Margolis, MD, CEO. "True managed care is not creating barriers to care. It means we create effective channels for care--from the primary care office to the specialist and hospital, when necessary. Our delivery systems are patient centered and integrated, thereby eliminating wasteful duplication and inappropriate services." This core competency has built the medical group a solid reputation for medical service delivery that has been recognized and lauded by business coalitions, employer groups, health plans, and patients.

Awards for Quality, Patient Satisfaction

The excellent patient care delivered by HealthCare Partners is demonstrated in the scores that consistently are awarded to the provider organizations in PacifiCare's Quality Index Profile, in Blue Ribbon Awards  for excellence in health care management by Blue Cross, and for high rates of patient satisfaction in The California Consumer Assessment Survey, a statewide survey that provides physician group performance data by the Pacific Business Group on Health.

Cost-Effective, Evidence Based Medicine

Recognized as a leader in evidence-based medicine, HealthCare Partners uses best practices and medical protocols to manage chronic disease states, and participates in research studies to keep the field moving forward. William Chin, MD, Executive Medical Director, explains, "We integrate all components of health care to provide the best patient outcomes."

This care extends beyond the doctor's office. "We employ hospital intensivists, specialist doctors who take care of our patients in hospitals," continues Dr. Chin. "And, of course, our medical group emphasizes health maintenance and practices preventive medicine."

Creating Patient Friendly Environments

"Our pursuit of excellence in customer service revolves around creating patient-friendly environments," says Melayne Yocum, COO. Doctors' offices are comfortable and reflect the preferences of the community they serve. The results of ongoing work process improvement efforts by HealthCare Partners staff and physicians--invisible to patients--are quickly put into effect so that each patient encounter becomes as pleasant as possible.

The medical group has pioneered such innovations as Premier Appointments, which ensures that patients can schedule appointments with their doctors as needed--even that same day; automatic referral authorizations for most common specialty services; new patient orientations; and Care Teams for primary care patients.

Valuable Partner to Employers

Employers looking to provide the best in healthcare to their staff have found that HealthCare Partners not only delivers quality, cost-effective medicine and satisfied patients, but also addresses employer concerns. The group supports benefit managers' open enrollment information needs, offers medical screenings and flu vaccines to assist employers in maintaining the health of their patients, provides health--related information for employers to disseminate to their staff if needed, and refers clinical speakers for employer group events.

The group also offers occupational and industrial health services that restore patients to functionality so they can resume work as soon as medically appropriate, helping both employee and employer save on costs.

Stable Management, Informed Leadership

Since 1992, HealthCare Partners has been a stable presence in the LA medical community. While other provider organizations struggled to survive or collapsed into bankruptcy, HealthCare Partners has carefully managed growth through mergers with other like-minded physician groups whose cultures emphasized clinical excellence and strong medical management practices. With such financial and management stability, there is less disruption in patient service or interruption in medical care when an employer decides to change health plans--good news for both employers and employees.

HealthCare Partners Medical Group now numbers 363 physicians practicing medicine from 28 neighborhood offices and four urgent care centers located throughout Los Angeles County. Physicians are assisted by more than 2,100 employees and a network of over 1,500 specialists. A major provider of medical care services, the medical group is also the one of the largest providers to seniors in Southern California.

HealthCare Partners, Ltd., the company's physician practice management company, also owns several independent physician association (IPA) networks as well--HealthCare Partners Provider Network, Alliance IPA, Unified IPA, and Long Beach IPA. Through those IPAs, employees can choose from 445 additional primary care physicians.

The medical group's stability is, in part, a result of its strong and broad physician network. Its continued fiscal health, however, relies upon ensuring physician and staff understanding of business issues, physician involvement at every level of management, and a collaborative team approach to medical and business system design.

Facing the Future

The senior executive team at HealthCare Partners understands the challenges ahead for all employers. "Health care in the United States continues to be in crisis," said Margolis. "As physicians, we want to play an active role in ameliorating systemic problems through pro-active strategies." These strategies include transforming the health care system to focus upon health and productivity, aligning incentives for optimally managed patient care, actively involving patients in decision making for health, and working in partnership with employers and business coalitions to help contain costs.

Employers and employees know the crucial nature of preventative, acute, ongoing, and emergency care for themselves and their families. Working within the framework of the current system, HealthCare Partners Medical Group's success lies in its ability to deliver quality health care to satisfied patients. Because, as their slogan says, good health matters.

For more information about HealthCare Partners and its programs (including its occupational health services) or to discover how HealthCare Partners can support your employee health programs, call the Communications/Marketing Department at [phone] or visit www.healthcarepartners.com.