Shreveport-Bossier City’s senior-oriented health care business is growing again

The third of three CareWell Senior Primary Care home buildings recently opened in Shreveport at 2020 Bert Kouns Industrial Loop.

It joins the original CareWell locations, which opened four years ago on East Texas Street in Bossier City and on Youee Drive.

James M. Remetich, market president for care delivery, said it’s a growing industry.

“The number of adults is increasing across the U.S. The declining percentage is the number of people who graduate from high school and go to college,” Remetich said.

To accommodate this growth, by the end of 2025, CenterWell Senior Primary Care expects 450 or more locations spread across the country, 500 when you add their partner name, Conviva, Remetich said.

A large population of seniors isn’t the only factor driving the increase, said Brian Byrd, director of Bossier City CenterWell Care. That’s because Humana Health, the insurance company that owns it, has made a conscious decision to focus on removing barriers to senior care.

The health care system, Byrd said, is “very difficult to run,” and not “patient friendly.” And there are many elderly people who need to get it.

The Pew Research Center says about 62 million Americans are currently 65 and older. That number is projected to grow to 85 million, a full 23% of the US population, by 2054.

Keeping the population healthy makes sense, Remetich and Byrd agree. It saves money for health care providers, insurance companies and seniors. It provides seniors with a high quality of life and an active lifestyle.

CareWell Senior Primary Care is, as it sounds, a place for primary care physicians to provide medical care, but it is outdated in the methods it uses.

Emphasis on customer care. Patients receive birthday and thank you cards from the facility. They get calls to check on them and remind them of the doctor’s orders and it goes on and on.

“We take a unique approach in the sense that we take financial responsibility for the members. Members come in and we don’t have to collect money every time they come in,” Remetich said. Of course, it goes back to the primary care physician and the team really coordinates individual care.”

In order to get an appointment, a person must be eligible for Medicare, either by age, disability or medical condition. Although Humana Health owns CareWell, Medicare and other insurance providers are accepted and patients are free to go to any hospital they wish.

Patient burdens are low. Compared to practicing doctors who only have 14 minutes per patient, CenterWell schedules each visit to last one hour.

“Our long time is not only for the patient but also for our doctors to spend time discussing and solving many problems in one visit instead of saying, ‘We talked about two things, you we’re going to have to come back.,'” Remetich said. “It is truly an example of accepting the needs of our citizens, and removing barriers to access to health care.”

“One of the things we found is a kind of medical duality,” Remetich added. it starts everywhere.”

Removing barriers, Byrd said, can include things like getting a patient a ride by sending a van or calling Uber, talking to a patient’s other doctors, or understanding how to stay up-to-date with all of a patient’s medications. the patient.

Dr. Jane Tsung-Wen Wong Fetterer of CenterWell Bossier switched to hospice care and moved to north Louisiana to be closer to her aging parents. He said the elderly are the number of people who can be ignored.

“We often focus on young people, when they are old, they are like the forgotten people and often they are weak and do not speak clearly so they don’t get the attention they need,” he said. Fetterer.