Spreading a health care model

A made-in-Westchester model for health care is being imported to New York City by a renowned institution and soon could be brought to other parts of the country by a business offshoot of the private physicians group that developed the model at its “polyclinics” in the county.

At Westmed Medical Group headquarters in Purchase, Dr. Simeon Schwartz, founder and president of the multispecialty group practice, called the partnership deal negotiated in the last year and announced this month “an industry-transformative event” in health care. A major New York hospital, the Mount Sinai Medical Center, will outsource a 75,000-square-foot outpatient medical office in Brooklyn to a small private company, Westmed Practice Partners, he said. Schwartz called the partnership a first by a hospital for “a strategic initiative of this magnitude.”

Mount Sinai is the first outside client for Westmed Practice Partners since the division was formed last year at Westmed Medical Group. The opening of the Mount Sinai Brooklyn Heights Medical Group office represents a $15 million to $20 million investment, Schwartz said.

Westmed Practice Partners will apply the expertise Westmed has acquired at its outpatient centers in Westchester, Schwartz said. “This is going to look like a Westmed facility and it”™s going to function like a Westmed facility.”

Westmed in the last year opened an 83,000-square-foot, 45-physician multispecialty clinic at the Ridge Hill development in Yonkers and a 28,000-square-foot office in New Rochelle. The practice since July has added 50 doctors, an increase of more than 20 percent. By the end of this summer, a practice that began with 16 doctors in 1996 will have grown to include 230 to 240 physicians. “We”™re in sort of hypergrowth,” Schwartz said.

That growth will be further fueled by Westmed”™s new management business serving hospitals and other health care providers. Schwartz said the Brooklyn deal will require adding 75 positions at Westmed.

Westmed will design and manage a downtown Brooklyn office staffed by Mount Sinai physicians. The Westchester company will install its information technology systems and back-office services. Billing, calls and other administrative operations will be centralized at a satellite service and call center that Westmed Practice Partners opened this year in Charlotte, N.C.

The Brooklyn office ”“ at 1 Pierrepont Plaza in the MetroTech Center complex owned by Ridge Hill”™s developer, Forest City Ratner Cos. ”“ is expected to open in January 2013. Schwartz said Westmed and Mount Sinai are jointly recruiting physicians for what will be a 60-doctor practice.

Westmed has sent recruitment brochures to about 1,500 physicians in Brooklyn, where many doctors work in solo or small group practices. “So we”™re not going to be subtle about our recruitment efforts,” Schwartz said.

With a new national focus on value-based health care, providers are held accountable for both the quality and cost of medical services, he said. Accountable care organizations, or ACOs, “are the current buzzword” in a reform-minded industry looking to improve quality of care while reducing its costs. With its multi-specialty clinics, Westmed provides the physical setting for the efficient, coordinated care that ACOs are designed to give, a “one-stop shopping medical experience,” Schwartz said.

“What”™s attractive for Sinai and for Brooklyn is that we”™re giving this organization an ACO in a box. The real value of Westmed is that we have built a model that we are able to deliver, that ACO in a box.”

In Brooklyn, Mount Sinai will offer the services of primary care physicians in addition to specialists in cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, general surgery, hematology/oncology, nephrology, neurology, OBGYN, ophthalmology, orthopedics, pediatrics, plastic surgery, podiatry, rheumatology and vascular surgery. An urgent care center at the site will be open seven days a week.

At least one more client is expected to sign this year with Westmed Practice Partners. With anticipated new business, Schwartz said Westmed will add 150 job positions over the next 12 to 18 months.

“This model seems to be catching on,” he said.