What is Kenji?
A next-generation payment model
Kenji is a risk-bearing Physician Cooperative - a new type of healthcare organization. A physician cooperative has full risk-bearing capabilities, accountability for outcomes, and a commitment to delivering cost-effective, high-quality care.
Why now?
The healthcare industry's payment models are in the midst massive transformation, with an increasing focus on improving care access, improving overall quality, reducing costs, and enhancing patient satisfaction. Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) have played a pivotal role in this transformation to date. They have demonstrated that by emphasizing coordinated care and holding providers accountable for cost and quality, better overall outcomes and lower total cost of care is achievable.
What makes Kenji different?
What makes Kenji different? To date, ACOs (as risk-bearing entities) have typically been financed and operated by hospital systems, health plans, or private equity firms. Physicians are treated as employees (at best) or an inconvenient labor cost to be minimized (at worst). This disenfranchises physicians, patients, and care delivery teams, and drives large amounts of avoidable excess cost and avoidable patient injuries and deaths.
Kenji is different. It is intentionally designed and structured to be about physicians, and is for the populations they care for. The outsized economic benefit to physicians is an outcome of getting care right, and as a Risk Bearing Entity (RBE), physicians are the payer too (i.e. stake holders in the physician cooperative) all surplus savings goes to the physicians. They are the owners. They are NOT the workforce labor of the RBE. This is an important distinction. Other models will backstop the risk, cover the retention, pay doctors 120% to 130% above Medicare plus a bonus for good behavior (annual wellness visits), but the surplus savings go to the anchor Hospitals, Payers, and/or Investors. Not physicians. Kenji will demonstrate how substantial these savings actually are and insulate these savings for physician determined reinvestment and equitable distribution.
Kenji leverages the expertise and experience of people just like you to increase the value of care delivered to your attributable beneficiaries and to better control care-related risk. In return, physicians participate equitably in the outsized economic benefits generated by new CMS payment models.
Key features of Kenji:
Physician-Led: Physicians are at the forefront of decision-making, governance, and clinical leadership and all related costs.
Full Risk ACO-Like Entity: Kenji operates as a full risk-bearing entity, accepting responsibility for the comprehensive healthcare needs of its patient population and all related costs.
Accountability: Physicians within Kenji are held accountable for the outcomes, costs, and overall well-being of the attributed patient population.
Cost Management: Kenji focuses on optimal care delivery, striving to reduce unnecessary procedures and overall healthcare expenses.
Quality of Care: Providing high-quality healthcare services is a paramount objective, ensuring superior health outcomes for patients.
Collaborative Approach: Physicians work together closely, often in partnership with other healthcare providers, to coordinate outstanding patient care efficiently.
Financial Risk: Physicians in Kenji assume financial risk, incentivizing them to manage costs while delivering excellent care.
Patient-Centric: Patient well-being and satisfaction are central to Kenji’s mission, emphasizing preventive care and chronic disease management.