ChenMed Promotes Regional President Jason Barker to Chief Operating Officer

MIAMI, Fla. – ChenMed, a nationally recognized physician-led primary care provider serving seniors in eight states, today announced the next step on its rapid path to deliver better primary care to at-risk seniors in underserved communities throughout the United States. The physician-owned company that recently announced 2020 plans to enter five new cities in two more states, is promoting Jason Barker, for his record of success, to serve as ChenMed chief operating officer (COO). The pairing of Barker’s strong operational leadership skills with the time-tested clinical leadership abilities of ChenMed’s chief medical officer (CMO), Gordon Chen, M.D., will now extend the organization’s proven dyad leadership structure throughout its nearly 80 centers, 19 markets and three regions to the ChenMed executive team.

“ChenMed’s success as a primary care provider rests on the bedrock of the dyad leadership structure we’ve maintained for more than 30 years,” says Christopher Chen, M.D., ChenMed CEO. “We pair truly gifted doctors with outstanding operations leaders at every level of our company. Together, they consistently drive the nimble and effective decision making that fuels outstanding relationships with and better health outcomes for our patients.”

“Net Promoter Scores consistently show how incredibly happy ChenMed patients and clinicians are,” Dr. Chen adds. “I know the close COO/CMO collaborations of Jason and Gordon will help us keep rewarding seniors with more healthy days and outstanding customer service. Plus, they’ll see to it that our primary care physicians keep loving their ChenMed careers.”

Barker will assume his new COO role on January 1, 2020 and will join ChenMed’s CMO in bringing collaborative executive leadership support for the company’s regional, market, and center-specific dyad leaders, as well as to key centers of excellence (COEs) – all to better support the exceptional ChenMed primary care physicians providing personalized primary care to diverse populations of seniors. Both CMO and COO will continue to report directly to ChenMed CEO, Dr. Christopher Chen, who will focus more of his energies on the strategic activities and initiatives that further advance ChenMed’s vision. Barker has 30 years of healthcare experience -- leading hospitals, medical groups, independent practice associations (IPAs), and health plans. Plus, his prior experience includes launching several risk-based contracting entities, including IPAs, physician-hospital organizations, Medicare Shared Savings Program ACOs, and Next-Gen ACOs. Having joined the ChenMed family of companies over three years ago, Barker’s recent accomplishments include:

• Effective oversight for many of ChenMed’s most successful centers
• Achieving consistently strong results while simultaneously developing great relationships with his team and colleagues throughout the organization
• Transforming ChenMed Operations and Transportation centers of excellence into business units adding tremendous value in all ChenMed markets
• Enhancing ChenMed’s robust, multi-faceted, practicum-based training program for new and existing leaders to better prepare them for success in a value-based provider organization
   

More time with patients means better outcomes

The proven ChenMed approach is simple and vital to Medicare-eligible seniors, many of whom are living with major and multiple chronic health challenges. ChenMed 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, ChenMed patients in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia already benefit from average time with their doctor exceeding 200 minutes annually. Soon, underserved seniors in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Memphis, Orlando, and St. Louis also will benefit from this same level of highly personalized primary care at 20 new Dedicated Senior Medical Centers opening in 2020.

Important ChenMed patient benefits include:

• Door-to-doctor transportation, if necessary.
• Having the cell phone number for his/her ChenMed 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.

About ChenMed

For seniors most in need of care, high-quality health care often is beyond reach. ChenMed brings concierge-style medicine — and better health outcomes — to the neediest populations. ChenMed is a privately owned medical, management and technology company that currently operates 59 primary care medical practices for diverse populations of seniors. A provider of choice for some 20 Medicare Advantage health insurance plans, ChenMed brands include Chen Senior Medical Center, Dedicated Senior Medical Center, and JenCare Senior Medical Center.

Results of ChenMed’s high-touch approach to primary care are impressive, as illustrated in the Modern Healthcare cover story (Oct. 20, 2018), which reports, “Indeed, ChenMed's approach has resulted in 50 percent fewer hospital admissions compared with a standard primary-care practice, 28 percent lower per-member costs and significantly higher use of evidence-based medications.”

Inspired by ChenMed Chairman and Founder James Chen, M.D., Ph.D., the company has been serving low-to-moderate-income seniors with multiple complex chronic conditions for over 30 years. The company’s passion for community service was recently underscored when ChenMed recently invested more than $500,000 on one day to underwrite more than 9,000 employee hours of volunteer work completed for outstanding community organizations. Learn more about the high-growth company by visiting www.ChenMed.com.