Personalized Primary Care for Palm Beach County Seniors: Dedicated Senior Medical Centers Offer Affordable VIP Care

Ribbon cutting in Riviera Beach, Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Riviera Beach, Fla. – ChenMed, a nationally recognized physician-led primary care provider serving seniors in Florida and seven more states through more than 60 locations, today announced grand opening for the third of three Dedicated Senior Medical Centers in Palm Beach County. The new Dedicated centers -- located in underserved Delray Beach, Greenacres and Riviera Beach neighborhoods – honor seniors with affordable VIP care that delivers better health.

In stark contrast to traditional fee-for-service medical practices across America, where it’s frequently hard for patients to schedule timely appointments with their primary care physicians, Dedicated doctors make it easy for patients to stay connected with the doctor who knows them best. They provide high-touch personalized primary care, giving patients their personal cell phone numbers for timely replies to texts and/or calls. Plus, they welcome walk-in appointments whenever needed by their Medicare-eligible patients.

“Our expansion into Palm Beach County means more healthy days for thousands of deserving seniors – especially those living with multiple and major chronic health challenges,” says Christopher Chen, M.D., CEO of ChenMed. “We’ve been transforming care for at-risk seniors for more than 30 years, because our doctors earn more trust. They better detect and manage high-risk diseases. Plus, they reduce hospital admissions by investing substantively more time with every patient.” Jason Barker, Regional Market President for 26 Chen and Dedicated Senior Medical Centers throughout Florida concurs, noting that “our primary care doctors serve an average of just 400 patients each. That’s less than one-fifth the national average of 2,300 patients per primary doctor, and it's a real quality of care advantage for our seniors.”

The current and rapidly growing Dedicated Palm Beach County clinical team already includes:

• Avianne Hospedales, M.D., Associate Chief Medical Officer
• Carolina Abrew, M.D., Primary Care Physician
• Beatrice Deshommes, M.D., Primary Care Physician
• Amy Kappes, D.O., Primary Care Physician

ChenMed’s five-year investment in Palm Beach County is expected to exceed $60 million as the senior-focused practice provides intensive primary care for up to 8,000 seniors. Initially, the three Dedicated centers in Palm Beach County will employ about 60 full-time workers, including front desk, Medical Assistants, RN case managers, and physicians – the vast majority of whom will be hired locally.

The Dedicated Centers in Palm Beach County are located at:

• Greenacres – 4998 10th Avenue North (corner of 10th and Haverhill)
• Delray Beach – 5848 West Atlantic Avenue
• Riviera Beach – 3002 Broadway Avenue

Ribbon cutting at Riviera Beach, Wednesday, October 23

When: 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.
10:30 to 10:45 a.m. VIP tour
10:45 to 11:15 a.m. official welcome and ribbon cutting

Who: ChenMed founder James Chen, M.D., Ph.D.; ChenMed CEO Christopher Chen, M.D.; Councilwoman Dr. Julia Botel and Councilman Douglas A. Lawson, City of Riviera Beach; Dedicated doctors, diverse community leaders and 150 to 200 seniors

More time with patients means better outcomes The Dedicated center concept is simple and vital to Medicare-eligible seniors, many of whom are living with major and multiple chronic health challenges. Dedicated primary care physicians average 10 times more face-to-face time with their patients than a typical physician does. Instead of the national average of just 20.3 minutes of direct time yearly with patients, Dedicated patients benefit from average time with doctor exceeding 200 minutes annually. The more doctors see their patients, the better they know them. And the better they know them, the better chance they have of helping them stay healthy by catching small issues before they turn into big ones.

Important personalized care benefits for Dedicated patients include:

• Door-to-doctor transportation, if necessary.
• Having the cell phone number for his/her Dedicated primary care physician for timely and informed help whenever a health concern might arise.
• Walk-in appointments.
• Unlimited visits.
• On-site cardiology, medication dispensing, imaging, labs, acupuncture, and more.
• Healthy lifestyle classes.
• Almost all costs of care covered by fixed Medicare and/Medicaid reimbursements that are enhanced by Medicare Advantage supplemental insurance.