Only a 12 months after launching as an organization, Bluebird Children Well being is already asserting plans to double its variety of pediatric clinics from three to 6.
The corporate — which for now, operates solely in Florida — seeks to enhance pediatric care entry in underserved areas by constructing practices in these neighborhoods and accepting all insurance coverage sorts. Practically half of all youngsters within the U.S. are lined by Medicaid, but a lot of their households have a troublesome time discovering pediatricians who will settle for their insurance coverage — creating troubling pediatric care deserts in lower-income communities.
This drawback implies that households in these communities are sometimes compelled to make use of emergency rooms for his or her routine care wants, which frequently leaves them saddled with 1000’s of {dollars} of debt, mentioned Chris Johnson, Bluebird’s founder and CEO.
“Kids on Medicaid typically have emergency division and hospitalization charges that resemble Medicare sufferers — which is stunning when you think about these are typically wholesome children. This isn’t only a healthcare problem; it impacts schooling when youngsters miss faculty, financial mobility when households can’t work on account of a baby’s well being wants, and general neighborhood wellbeing,” he defined.
Bluebird goals to supply a uniform, high quality expertise for all households — irrespective of the kind of protection they’ve, Johnson famous. The startup’s enterprise mannequin is constructed round value-based care preparations with each Medicaid and industrial payers.
The corporate’s mannequin additionally integrates behavioral well being into major care so as to tackle a significant hole in pediatric providers, notably for Medicaid sufferers, Johnson added.
Since launching three clinics in Palm Seashore County final 12 months, Bluebird has grown to serve greater than 20,000 sufferers.
Over the course of the summer season, the corporate can be opening three new de novo areas — two in Jacksonville and one in Broward County. These clinics are deliberately sited in pediatric care deserts the place entry to pediatricians is restricted for lower-income households, Johnson said.
“As we appeared for the optimum spot to web site these new practices, we primarily checked out a metro space and understood the place there simply aren’t sufficient pediatricians to serve all the kids that dwell in that neighborhood. These are usually lower-income communities. There’s only a pure evolution that’s occurred within the healthcare system, the place numerous healthcare entry factors are usually in higher-income communities — and that’s occurred over the past 30 to 40 years. We’re making an attempt to counter that by bringing entry to those households and these youngsters which have struggled to get entry — our doorways are open to everybody,” he declared.
The brand new clinics are additionally positioned in high-traffic retail areas, close to public transit and neighborhood facilities, to make them simple to succeed in. They provide prolonged night and weekend hours, on-line and telephone appointment reserving, walk-in availability, and digital and telephonic care choices — all decisions that have been made to spice up accessibility, Johnson defined.
Within the 12 months that Bluebird’s unique three clinics have been working, the corporate is already experiencing a excessive demand for its providers, he added.
“We’re seeing nice demand and traction as a result of we’re finding our clinics in these areas of excessive unmet want. We’re additionally seeing that we’re having a extremely nice shopper expertise — our mother or father sort of Internet Promoter Rating is persistently north of 90%. We’re additionally having actually excessive worker satisfaction, so we’re capable of entice and retain prime quality employees,” Johnson remarked.
Kids’s healthcare outcomes are bettering as properly, he identified.
He mentioned that Bluebird’s care mannequin has lowered emergency division visits by greater than 50% and inpatient admissions by practically 70% amongst its sufferers. These outcomes stem primarily from proactive administration of frequent pediatric situations like bronchial asthma and nervousness, Johnson mentioned.
Earlier this 12 months, the startup raised $31.5 million in Sequence A funding. Within the subsequent couple of years, Bluebird will seemingly broaden into new states — akin to Georgia, Texas, Virginia and the Carolinas — in response to payer curiosity in its value-based care mannequin, Johnson said.
Picture: Steve Debenport, Getty Photographs
