Premise Health Expands Virtual Primary Care, Continues to Redefine Health Care for Clients and Members

Premise Health, the largest direct health care provider and an OMERS portfolio company, today announced that its market-leading virtual primary care service is expanding. Since early 2020, Premise has partnered with large employers, health plans, and other organizations that sponsor health care for individuals and families to bring fully integrated virtual primary care to their people through the Premise Health Digital Wellness Center. Now, Premise is building upon the success of this service, which has achieved high member engagement and satisfaction by empowering members to choose Digital Wellness Center physicians as their virtual primary care providers.

This expansion ensures members can establish a long-term relationship with a virtual provider while benefitting from the unmatched convenience of high-quality, 24/7 health care. It also responds to robust client demand for virtual care services. Premise has added more than 30 organizations to its roster of virtual care clients in the last year, signaling a growing commitment among organizations to increase access to holistic digital health care that meets the needs of their people and families. By integrating virtual care into existing onsite and nearsite wellness centers, Premise clients recognize they can better serve their entire populations regardless of their location.

“As we continue to navigate through COVID-19, organizations are evaluating their health benefits to ensure their entire populations, including on campus, hybrid, remote, and dispersed workers, all have equal access to high-quality health care that improves outcomes and lowers costs,” said Jami Doucette, MD, MBA, CSCS, president of Premise Health. “By expanding our virtual primary care model, Premise Health can better serve organizations evolving to a digital-first health care approach, while also making it even easier for our members to benefit from a relationship with a primary care provider.”

Premise launched its 50-state, virtual primary care service in January 2020, becoming one of the first digital health care providers to deliver 24/7 care from an employed physician team. Today, virtual primary care is integrated with virtual behavioral health, virtual occupational health, and virtual pharmacy as part of the Premise Health Digital Wellness Center, a cloud-based portal where members can schedule appointments, interact with their providers, and access all their health information. The Digital Wellness Center also includes Connected Care+, an advanced population health and value-based care solution that leverages data-driven insights to support high-quality, cost-effective care.

“With more than 90 wellness centers accredited by the Accreditation Association for Ambulatory Health Care, Premise Health is known for clinical quality,” said Jonathan Leizman, MD, chief medical officer at Premise Health. “It is exciting to bring that same focus on quality care to the digital environment, where we can reach more of our members. Most members who experience virtual care with Premise have a second visit, which validates the need for virtual care and demonstrates our clinicians’ ability to build meaningful relationships with patients, whether in-person or digitally.”

Studies have shown that people with a primary care provider have lower health care costs over time. In a representative claims analysis of 67,000 eligible lives, Premise found that members attributed to its wellness centers saw a 19% increase in primary care through routine and preventive office visits, leading to a 41% reduction in inpatient admissions and 24% reduction in outpatient and ambulatory services. These trends contributed to more than $1,500 average savings per Premise attributed member per year.

Premise operates more than 800 onsite and nearsite wellness centers nationwide, all of which integrate with the Digital Wellness Center. With its combination of digital and in-person access, Premise delivers the most comprehensive primary care network of any direct health care or digital health care provider. Members benefit from an integrated provider team with access to their electronic health records, easy access to digital and in-person care and seamless referrals to high-value, in-network specialty care when needed. Most of all, they have a partner for identifying, setting and achieving their health and wellness goals.

“Our approach at Premise is to offer one single, simple entry point for members to get the care they need, no matter where they are,” Doucette said. “Organizations recognize it’s no longer sustainable or effective to ask their people to access benefits through multiple different portals and point solutions. To increase benefits satisfaction and help people get healthier, we have to make health care easy.”

To learn more about the Digital Wellness Center and virtual primary care at Premise, visit the website here.