Trust me when I say it’s never too late for a transition in healthcare. I have practiced medicine for over 30 years. For the first third of my career, I educated primary care doctors focused on indigent care within a large health system in the Atlanta area. It was important work, but I could not see myself as a career academician. I wanted to be closer to patients, so I decided to start my own primary care practice in 2005.
I grew my practice for nearly 15 years, hiring additional physicians and caring for more patients. In 2019, I had a realization – I wanted to harmonize the personalized care of my practice with the resources of a larger care team, so I started looking for a change. That’s when I found VillageMD.
Joining Village was a transformational experience. Like many doctors, for most of my career I practiced in a fee-for-service system, where your success is determined on your ability to see as many patients as possible. At VillageMD, we take a different approach. It’s not about maximizing the number of patients you see; it’s about maximizing their health outcomes. We don’t sacrifice quality of care to the quantity of care.
Village allows me to be a better doctor. At my own practice, when a patient needed mental health services or nutrition counseling, I had to send them somewhere else. At Village, I can connect them to the resources they need in our coordinated care network. By offering a long-term relationship with a healthcare team, we help patients access needed resources more conveniently. Since we are not driven by the fee-for-service need to see as many patients as possible, we take the extra time to emphasize why it’s important for patients to take their medications and even attempt to address their underlying concerns, for example, housing stability.
At Village, I’m bringing quality care to a population that looks like me, and often does not receive the best care. About 90% of my patients at my Village Medical practice in DeKalb County, Georgia are African American. I’m at the forefront of our mission to bring the care of tomorrow to the communities often excluded from the care of today.
We know chronic disease doesn’t just affect patients; it affects families too. One story from my time at Village Medical shows how true that is. I had a patient with heart failure and end-stage renal disease. He was a husband and father of two girls, and I had a great relationship with them. His daughters and I frequently talked over the phone about their dad’s condition, and they shared updates about his hospital visits. After his last trip to the hospital, I got a team from Village at Home, our coordinated healthcare-at-home delivery model, involved in his care. I soon learned how that care touched the whole family.
One of my patient’s daughters called me after the caregivers visited and thanked me. Village at Home was not just able to take great care of their father by helping to enroll him in a hospice program among other things, but they were able to address the needs of the whole family.
At Village, we’re combining the personalized care of a small practice with the resources of a larger system. The result is more attention and services for patients, and it’s transforming primary care. If you are interested in joining me at VillageMD, you can review opportunities here.
