Older individuals with complex medical conditions and obstacles to accessing healthcare can find it difficult to connect with the services they need. That's where ConcertoCare — a Cure Collaboration Residency company — can help. The technology-enabled organization provides in-home in-person and virtual healthcare support and, when needed, primary care to beneficiaries of Medicare+Medicaid, Medicare Advantage and Medicare in five states…and growing.
"Our multidisciplinary teams manage the most complex patients with unmet needs," explained Julian Harris, MD, ConcertoCare's Chairman and CEO and an Operating Partner at Deerfield Management, an affiliate of Cure. "Our goal is to manage their conditions to help keep them out of the hospital, improve their behavioral health, manage their medications and address unmet social needs, which includes things like access to food, housing and transportation." Advanced care planning support, palliative care and caregiver support are also available.
ConcertoCare Coordinates Vital Services
Harris observed the challenges of older patients in his own family. "I watched my maternal grandfather spend his 80s lovingly caring for my grandmother in their home after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. My grandmother received care from a fragmented ecosystem of providers, and my family had to coordinate everything on our own," he said. "ConcertoCare can now deliver and orchestrate comprehensive medical, behavioral and social services for seniors and their caregivers, helping seniors to maintain their independence and remain in their homes."
The name ConcertoCare is a musical reference. A concerto is a musical piece that features a soloist, backed by an orchestra of other musicians.
"At ConcertoCare, we think of the patient as the soloist and our interdisciplinary teams as the orchestra," said Harris.
Those teams include physicians, nurse practitioners, social workers, community health workers, health coaches, pharmacists and others backed by the technology and analytics they leverage to support patients.
Eligible patients with chronic, complex conditions such as heart failure or diabetes are connected with ConcertoCare via their healthcare plans.
For patients who already have a primary care provider (PCP), ConcertoCare partners with their current doctor to bring additional wrap-around support right to their home. The company's in-home CarePartners are an extension of the PCP and help to deliver medical support customized to the patient's needs. ConcertoCare works with the patient's health insurance plan to provide these services at no additional cost to the patient.
"We do the hardest things so we can ensure that the care people receive is more coordinated than it would be otherwise," noted Harris. ConcertoCare's approach is designed to reduce hospital admissions, readmissions and emergency room visits and to increase quality care that patients receive for complex medical, behavioral and social needs.
Harris encourages other entrepreneurs to identify opportunities to enhance parts of our healthcare system that are not working well and to not shy away from difficult challenges.
"Healthcare is a really exciting field, and there's an extraordinary amount of innovation. But fundamentally, we still have a broken healthcare system with significant opportunities for transformation," he contended. "I encourage people to look for opportunities to build companies to transform a particular part of the healthcare system that is failing. I always tell people that if you can do the hardest things, you can do anything."
Being a Part of the Cure Healthcare Innovation Ecosystem
Harris is excited to have ConcertoCare as part of the Cure healthcare innovation ecosystem in New York City. "It's really exciting to have access to such a diverse ecosystem of innovators — from companies that are developing the next generation of transformative therapeutics to medical device innovators," he said. "It's also beneficial to our organization to have access to classroom space and conference facilities, and for our team to be able to get some fresh air and have an outdoor brainstorming or working session on the roof deck with views of the city. Some of our team is based in New York and some of our team is based in other markets. Having a place where we can bring the whole team together in a setting as vibrant and dynamic as the Cure ecosystem, in the heart of Flatiron district, has been really rewarding for the company."
Harris is an Operating Partner at Deerfield Management, an affiliate of Cure. Deerfield has a financial interest in ConcertoCare.