WellBe Senior Medical has expanded its services to, now, reach more than 75,000 patients.
The Chicago-based WellBe offers home-based medical care services, including integrated mobile urgent care, in six states: Georgia, Illinois, Ohio, Utah, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
The organization partners directly with health plans, health systems, and provider groups to work with their patients — typically the top 10% of seniors that have complex conditions.
“90 to 95% of what can be done in a clinic setting, we can actually deliver in the home,” Mike Stuart, chief growth officer at WellBe, told Home Health Care News. “Oftentimes, these are frail, homebound patients that struggle to complete appointments in a clinic setting, so we’re able to bring this care model to their home.”
WellBe’s leaders consider crossing that 75,000- patient threshold to be a significant accomplishment.
WellBe launched in its first two markets — Georgia and Illinois — in 2020. Back then, the company had roughly 5,000 patients under its care. Since then, it’s been a rapid progression, according to Stuart.
“We were able to really demonstrate what can happen when you bring this type of comprehensive model into the home,” he said. “Health plans are looking for ways to differentiate and improve medical cost and quality across the health care spectrum. Within Medicare Advantage lies the top 10% of seniors with complex conditions, and many of these patients face challenges that go beyond the chronic conditions.”
Currently, WellBe works with a mix of regional plans, multi-state plans and large national plans.
“We’re grateful for the partnerships that we have,” Stuart said. “These are really some of the most innovative health plans in the country today. We look forward to the opportunity to further our partnerships with them and to bring this model to more of their members. At the same time, we want to increase density with this model because we’re payer agnostic.”
One of its most notable partnerships is its collaboration with Aetna.
In addition to metric success, WellBe is focused on expanding the company’s care delivery model across the country.
“This is an innovative model that really is designed to provide this comprehensive care nationwide,” he said. “This gives us the opportunity to work with an increasing number of innovative health plans and providers in those markets to care for additional patients. This significant growth we’ve seen is really a testament to the market demands, and then also just the unique aspects of our model.”
Stuart noted that WellBe is caring for its over 75,000 patients under full global risk.
“When you think about that journey into value-based care — this is the far end spectrum of that, where we take full responsibility, not only clinically for these patients, but also financially in partnership with the health plans we work with,” he said.
Being a company that takes on full global risk allows WellBe to provide guaranteed earnings improvement back to the health plan for the entire attributed population, which is a big advantage for those organizations.
Looking ahead, WellBe has plans to enter another state. The company will begin operating in Oregon next month.
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