DTC Family Health

Shifting from fee-for-service to value-based-care

Dr. Lynn Joffe, a third-generation Colorado native and seasoned physician at DTC Family Health in Greenwood Village, Colorado, has witnessed firsthand the shift in healthcare reimbursement.

“Currently, health care is mostly reimbursed based on procedures and a moment in time,” she says. “We're seeing a huge move currently towards value-based care, where the patient and the whole patient is valued.”

DTC Family Health, a family practice dedicated to continuing, comprehensive care, has long been dedicated to serving its community.

“I've been in health care for 30 years and as I have aged, my population has aged with me,” Joffe says. “So, we have a larger senior population in our practice, which requires a lot more TLC.”

Partnering with Aledade — a physician-led value-based care company — and athenahealth, DTC Family Health is navigating this transition to value-based care with both technology and strategy aligned to focus on the whole patient.

Value Based Care = Whole-Person Care

At the core of DTC’s transformation is a philosophy that values patients as whole individuals, as opposed to the transaction that brought them in. As Joffe puts it, “We take care of the full spectrum of patients’ lives.”

This approach requires proactive engagement, robust documentation, and a focus on preventing illness rather than reacting to it.

“More so than that individual moment of care, primary care providers are being encouraged to actually engage more with those patients, to not just react, but actually prevent and anticipate,” she explains.

Aledade’s accountable care organization (ACO) - groups of primary care organizations that come together to participate in value-based care – model supports this by aligning incentives around patient outcomes and sustainable revenue, empowering practices like DTC Family Health to invest in comprehensive care without sacrificing financial viability.

Technology as a catalyst

For DTC, technology plays a vital role in enabling this new care paradigm. athenaOne® equips DTC Family Health with tools to identify at-risk patients and gain deeper insights through data integration and unparalleled interoperability. Joffe notes, “athenaOne has been really effective in enabling us to bring forward patients who are at risk and identify patients who need additional TLC.”

The platform’s ability to aggregate payer data and other external sources, including information from Aledade, provides a broader, more accurate and complete picture of patient health.

“athenaOne offers lots of support and tools,” Joffe says. “[Aledade has] the Overlay tool, and behind the Overlay is a very extensive app that has a lot of additional information [from Aledade] that we don't necessarily have in athenaOne. They’re getting payer data, they’re getting information from other sources that we don’t necessarily see. So, they’re able to give us a bigger, broader picture of our patients and their true health status.”

This data-driven approach reduces clinicians’ workload by simplifying workflows and minimizing unnecessary clicks. Joffe appreciates that Aledade and athenaOne’s approach to innovation enables her to stay efficient and focus on the patient: “I think both athenahealth and Aledade are really working towards taking a lot of the workload off the clinician. And, again, decreasing the clicks, being more intuitive, and bringing in more AI systems.”

Streamlining operations to focus on the patient and stay independent

Maintaining independence is a core value for DTC Family Health, as they feel it’s an essential part of delivering the kind of care they want for their patients.

“Staying independent is a high priority for my practice, and I think the care that independent primary care practices give is exponentially higher quality,” Joffe says. However, the administrative burden of managing an independent practice can quickly overwhelm organizations that are not set up for success.

DTC's independence is supported both by streamlined administrative processes that reduce unnecessary burdens in athenaOne as well as through their partnership with Aledade.

“Aledade is really committed to keeping us independent and is trying to make things easier in that way, streamlining work, taking the burden off the practice when we shouldn’t or don’t need to be doing redundant tasks that are unnecessary,” Joffe says.

By minimizing these administrative distractions, Dr. Joffe has more time to focus on what matters most, meaningful patient interactions.

“They’re really trying to minimize those so that we are able to do our work and interact with our patients,” she says.

A philosophy of collaboration

According to Dr. Joffe, one of the most important foundations to the partnership among DTC Family Health, Aledade, and athenahealth is a shared philosophy of collaboration and respect for clinician input.

“Both Aledade and athena have a philosophy of playing nicely with others. Because of that, they’re both set up to create a much greater partnership in moving forward in this value-based care world,” Joffe says.

This inclusive approach means solutions are tailored to the realities of providers’ daily work rather than guesswork from non-clinicians.

“They want to include everybody,” Joffe says. “They want to make this work and really engage us where we live every day to try to figure out what works for us versus imposing what they think should work for us.”

Looking Ahead: Thriving in a Value-Based Future

The success of DTC Family Health illustrates how independent practices can thrive in a value-based care landscape by embracing collaborative partnerships and innovative technology.

“There’s a multitude of benefits that we’ve seen being with Aledade,” Joffe says. “They enable us just to pay attention to the patient, to manage the patient while they’re dealing with all of the chaos behind the scenes.”

Of athenahealth, Joffe says, “They look at the patient much more as a whole person,” compared to other EHRs, which equips clinicians at DTC to do the same.

For healthcare leaders and providers seeking to navigate the shift from fee-for-service to value-based care, reach out to learn how the partnership between Aledade and athenahealth can empower your practice to thrive in this new era of healthcare.