Arrowhead Health Centers and their leadership has once again been recognized for their policy of putting patients first. Dr. David Berg, co founder of Redirect Health and Arrowhead Health Centers, was featured in the Physician Innovator for dedicating his career to providing affordable and convenient healthcare.
Patients Deserve Convenient Healthcare
Dr. David Berg – Founder of Arrowhead Health Centers and Redirect Health
What should seem like a no brain-er, (patients deserving convenient healthcare) is lost in today’s American healthcare system. This was recognized the moment Dr. Berg and his wife, Janice Johnston moved to Phoenix from Toronto to practice medicine. With confusing medical billing codes, long wait times, and lack of clear communication among providers, they realized that there was a need in the Phoenix area for affordable, convenient healthcare.
So they founded Arrowhead Health Centers, a multi-care facility where patients could see different providers in one day if needed and care could be coordinated efficiently. What started as one facility in Glendale has grown to 10 locations throughout the valley and Prescott.
Getting to this point wasn’t an easy task. As this excerpt from the article explains:
First, consider whether a “put patients first” clinic can be financially viable. After all, giving patients what they want inevitably means doing work that insurers will not pay for. Nonetheless, Arrowhead is financially healthy because Berg and Johnston have worked so hard behind the scenes to operate as efficiently as possible. Second, could a “put patients first” approach improve the system as a whole? It might, if a primary care operation that had extraordinarily high patient satisfaction also kept patients healthier and reduced the need for high-cost services downstream.
As Arrowhead is self-insured, Berg has plenty of data from his own employees’ health plan. He has been sufficiently encouraged by that data to launch a second business venture, Redirect Health, that puts him in position to capture at least some of the savings to the system that Arrowhead creates.
Redirect Health and the Future of Low Cost, Convenient Healthcare
Redirect Health was founded after seeing some Arrowhead employees leave for larger companies with better benefits packages. After realizing that replacing these highly trained employees was expensive and affected the bottom line, Dr. Berg launched a plan to ensure 100% of employee’s care that fit into the “routine 90” category, which is the 90 percent of services that 90 percent of the population needs 90 percent of the time.
Dr. Berg, his wife and business partner Dr. Janice Johnston, and former Phoenix Mayor Paul Johnson launched Redirect Health in 2014. Their goal is to provide Arrowhead-style health services to companies that employ lower-wage workers.
To read the full article including a bio on Dr. David Berg, click here.
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