Dr. Alan Kurose | CEO and president, Coastal Medical Inc.
1. Do you expect to see any changes, particularly with telemedicine, in Coastal’s primary care practices after the COVID-19 crisis ends? COVID-19 prompted us to accelerate adoption of telemedicine to care for patients in the safest way possible. We are grateful that the insurers and [the R.I. Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner] implemented new payment policies virtually overnight to support telemedicine. Coastal providers and staff quickly adapted their workflows to provide more than 600 visits a day using videoconference technology. Face-to-face visits currently comprise just 10% of daily patient encounters. Traditional office visits will once again be commonplace after the pandemic, but many patients may prefer some combination of face-to-face and telemedicine encounters. Telemedicine looks like it’s here to stay.
2. Are you concerned about patients not seeking medical care for non-COVID-19 conditions right now? Yes. The circumstance of patients deferring necessary medical care for non-COVID-related conditions is a real problem. My hope is that this phenomenon has been mitigated at Coastal by easy access to same-day telemedicine visits and proactive outreach to our most vulnerable patients. I want to emphasize that any Rhode Islander with a medical problem should not delay seeking appropriate treatment.
3. Coastal and Lifespan Corp. signed a letter of intent to form an affiliation in February; has there been any more official progress on the agreement? Signing a letter of intent allowed Coastal and Lifespan to begin the work of creating a definitive agreement. That process was proceeding as expected until the pandemic forced both organizations to temporarily step away from the table to focus on treating patients with COVID-19.
4. Will linking up with Lifespan change the way Coastal operates as an accountable care organization? Coastal and Lifespan have a long history of successful collaboration in caring for patients. The complementary strengths of each organization suggest there is an opportunity to realize significant synergies in joining together. Foremost amongst such synergies are opportunities to more closely coordinate hospital care, specialty care and primary care so that care becomes simpler and more effective for patients.
5. How did Coastal’s performance as an ACO compare in 2019 with previous years? 2019 was our best performance year ever in shared savings. We will receive payments related to that performance over the course of this year and most of those funds will be reinvested to maintain and expand Coastal’s innovative clinical programs. A portion of the savings we achieve under each contract is shared by the insurer and those savings are passed on to employers and consumers.
