National Physician Group Releases 2014 Annual Review

PHOENIX, AZ--(Marketwired - April 24, 2015) - The nation's largest physician-owned, physician-led inpatient medicine practice released its performance results for 2014 today. Apogee Physicians, based in Phoenix, AZ, reported that their 750 employed hospitalist physicians admitted more inpatients to their 110 partner hospitals than were admitted to The Mayo Clinic, The Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, Mass General, Memorial Sloan Kettering and the UCLA Medical Center combined.

"We admitted 269,071 patients to our partner hospitals across 31 states last year and are proud of the impressive clinical results that our doctors delivered for the patients in our care," said Michael Gregory, MD, the Founder and Chairman of Apogee Physicians. "Out of over a quarter of a million inpatient admissions, 95 percent of our patients eligible for an evidence-based clinical pathway were on that pathway. Our focus is to make the best practice the common practice."

Apogee Physicians consistently reduced the amount of time patients had to spend as an inpatient in the hospital and their patients were readmitted to the hospital less often. Specifically, the report notes that Medicare inpatients cared for by Apogee Physicians were discharged nearly a full day sooner from the hospital than the average Medicare inpatient; in addition, these patients were 27 percent less likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of their discharge, based on the published national Medicare averages.

"This represents outstanding care for our patients and a substantial savings in healthcare expenditures for our society," said Gregory. "Apogee Physicians' performance resulted in approximately $54 million in avoided hospital costs for our hospital partners. Nationally, if the 14 million Medicare patients admitted to U.S. acute care hospitals were cared for with the same results that Apogee Physicians produced, the cost savings would be more than $5.2 billion dollars for the nation's healthcare system."

Apogee's partner hospitals were also recognized for high quality more often than the average U.S. hospital. Each year the hospital accrediting body, The Joint Commission, lists each hospital that achieves a "Top Performers in Quality Measures" designation. These hospitals have demonstrated measurable excellence in quality measure performance. Nationally, only 37 percent of hospitals earn the "Top Performer" distinction. The Joint Commission recognized 53 percent of Apogee's partner hospitals in their 2014 listing of "Top Performers in Quality Measures" hospitals. 

"What we do is meaningful, important work and patients' lives literally depend on our individual devotion to excellence," said Gregory. "Our company and our physicians do not answer to investors like other national groups that practice hospitalist medicine. We answer to the individual with the most invested -- the patient for whom we are providing inpatient care."

The report noted that in 2014, over 100,000 of Apogee patients were personally called by their Apogee physician within 48 hours of being discharged home from the hospital; it was also reported that 96 percent of Apogee patients mentioned that their Apogee physician specifically thanked them for the opportunity to provide them physician care. 

Apogee's physician workforce has grown an average of 15 percent a year since 2011. Their ability to effectively recruit and retain physicians saved Apogee's partner hospitals over $10 million in 2014 by avoiding expensive temporary-physician staffing costs by nearly eliminating the need for using short-term "locum tenens" physicians. Of the more than 1.6 million physician hours worked by Apogee Physicians in 2014, less than one percent of those hours were covered by locum tenens providers.

"Our doctors worked very hard last year in a healthcare environment that continues to increase with complexity," Gregory said. "As a company, we continually reinforce that our simple mission is to do what's best for the patient. Our physicians are motivated by providing great care to people in need and these results reflect the impact of our work on our patients and the community at large."

The full Apogee Physicians Annual Review is available on the Apogee website, www.apogeephysicians.com.