The fact that athenaOne is cloud-based and there is a mobile application, it’s been very helpful, and I use it all the time. When I’m talking to patients on my phone, I’ll pull up athenaOne and look at it. Part of my model is I do offer house calls. I’ve done that several times and been able to connect on my iPhone or my computer. And I’ll have basically everything I need to make an informed visit and make informed decisions based on the patient’s health record. In my old practice, we had an electronic medical record that was on a (physical) server and it was not good.

One of the reasons I loved athena to begin with is that the software is very user-friendly for the doctor. I think it opens itself up to alternative models like mine. The whole world is becoming more mobile, right? And, obviously, the coronavirus is going to change to a big degree how care is delivered. So, the more integrated you are, the better.

We’ve been doing more telehealth and phone calls and some Facetime chats [integrated with the athenaOne mobile app]. I’m still seeing patients in the office if need be and testing people if need be. I’m certainly glad I made the transition when I did because my revenue isn’t dependent on office visit volume.

Now, if I had a traditional — especially family — practice, it would be really hard to make ends meet. I didn’t apply for any COVID-19 loans because it hasn’t really changed my business model. There was one patient I called and he said he’s not making any money now. His quarterly payment’s due and I told him it’s fine, not to worry. But again, I have the ability to make those decisions because I own the practice and it’s not fee-for-service.

Even with value-based care initiatives (introduced), the financial models are still primarily fee-for-service. And it was just harder and harder for me to really make ends meet. Because of the volume of patients I had to see on a daily basis, I felt like it was compromising my care. I don’t disagree with value-based care — but I wanted to remain a small practice. I felt like the numbers were sort of getting mismatched and weren’t representative of the care I was giving. And I would be penalized if we were costing Medicare or [insurance companies] more money. I didn’t want to look at my patients like commodities. It would make me physically ill to look in my numbers and then say, ‘Okay, my patients may be costing [carriers] more. Therefore, I’m not a good doctor.’ It doesn’t make sense. So, I’m really much happier now.

Accessibility to me is part of my model. There are more phone calls out of the office than before. Patients want that and expect that. But I’m happy to do it now that I have fewer patients. I have the time and I have my phone on me all the time anyways. Prior to my transition, patients would get sick. Someone would go to the hospital. I wouldn’t even know about it. That was especially important when I was actively involved in valued-based care models. It was critical because you could manage a lot of stuff without them going to the ER.  I am doing more [after-hours calls] now, but having a mobile application baked into athena really helps.

When patients are in this model and paying for this service, communication is key, right? They want to feel connected to their doctor. I think from the patients’ perspective, the portal is very good. Having everything through the portal means it’s documented for me, too. A lot of my patients are engaged, and I consistently get reports that they like it.

I think that’s actually one thing that’s positive that could come out of this pandemic is having the ability to communicate better, to do telehealth visits. I anticipate I will probably do more of that moving forward, which won’t be a bad thing.