Greenwich doctor steps into a pas de deux with patients
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BY KEVIN ZIMMERMAN kzimmerman@westfairinc.com
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t’s been an unusual journey for Edra Stern. A one-time performer with the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, she has been a doctor specializing in internal medicine in Connecticut since 2009 and in 2015 opened her current office in Greenwich. “I’d sort of reached the end of the ballet rope at the age of 30,” Stern said at her 644 W. Putnam Ave. office. “As a child, I’d been a tomboy who liked mud and dissecting insects, experimenting on spiders. After my dance career, the first thing I did was take a biology class.” The career change “was a combination of good luck and having generous patients,” she said. “I chose to explore science, which led in an unexpected way to my applying to medical school.” Stern went on to receive her medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, after which she completed a residency in internal medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center and a fellowship at the New York University School of Medicine, where she studied and taught patient-doctor communication skills. “Being a dancer is very much like being an athlete,” she said. “There’s a special kind of focus and discipline and an attention to detail that proved to be very well-suited to medicine as well. Maybe most importantly, I’m now in an environment where you’re expected to improve with age — as opposed to dance, where you tend to peak in your 20s and it’s all downhill from there.” Stern’s latest evolution is becoming just the third physician in Fairfield County, and the ninth in Connecticut, to affiliate with MDVIP, a Florida-based company that operates a network of physicians offering an alternative model of primary care ¬— often referred to as “concierge,” “membershipbased” or “boutique” medicine — that is growing in popularity for both doctors and patients. MDVIP is the nation’s largest network of primary care doctors offering what the company describes as consumerfocused, personalized care. MDVIP Chairman and CEO Bret Jorgensen said the concept involves significantly smaller practices, which allows doctors to spend more time with each patient and provide highly individualized primary care compared with traditional practices. Stern said her aim is to top out at about 600 patients in her care rather than a traditional office practice whose patient base can be in the thousands.
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Dr. Edra Stern, a former professional ballet dancer, with a patient at her membership-based practice in Greenwich.
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For an annual membership fee of $1,500 to $1,800 per year, each MDVIP patient receives the MDVIP Wellness Program, a comprehensive yearly health assessment that includes advanced diagnostic tests and screenings to give a more complete view of the patient’s overall health. Using the results, physicians provide one-on-one coaching and tools to help patients make healthier lifestyle choices, prevent disease and achieve their personal wellness goals. In addition to the membership fee, patients are responsible for applicable insurance co-pays and deductibles. The MDVIP program is compatible with both commercial insurance and Medicare and company-affiliated physicians continue to comply with their contractual terms for covered services. MDVIP officials said the program also is compatible with most health savings accounts. “We usually add 80 to 90 physicians a year” to the MDVIP network, Jorgensen said. “As our network has grown, we’ve remained pretty consistent for several years.” Today the company’s national network consists of about 840 physicians serving more than 260,000 patients in 43 states and the District of Columbia. According to a American Journal of Managed Care study, Medicare patients in MDVIP-affiliated practices were admitted to the hospital 79 percent less than Medicare patients in traditional practices and commercially insured MDVIP patients
Week of June 19, 2017 • FAIRFIELD COUNTY BUSINESS JOURNAL
were in the hospital 72 percent less than non-MDVIP patients. Readmission rates for Medicare patients suffering heart attack, congestive heart failure and pneumonia were dramatically lower than readmission rates for non-MDVIP Medicare patients, the study found. “MDVIP allows me to get to know my patients and give them the care that best fits their needs and keeps them as healthy as possible,” Stern said. “There’s not all the bureaucracy involved and less time spent with receptionists and front-of-office staff that can interfere with patient care. If I get a call from a patient in the middle of the night, I’m familiar enough with them to make a much better assessment than I would otherwise. Do they need to go to the ER or is this something that can be treated by phone?” In one such case, Stern said a patient called her complaining that she’d lost all feeling in one hand. Stern was quickly able to eliminate the possibility of a stroke by talking with the patient — finally determining that she had a severe case of vertigo — and scheduled an appointment with a specialist for the following morning. “It’s important for patients to feel that they can be in charge of their care and to talk with someone who knows them, their background and what their needs are,” she said. “It’s really affordable, compared with some of the other options, and it works well for the physician and the patient alike.”
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