10 Things You May Be Surprised to Know About the Three Dozen Doctors Among Us!

People are often surprised to learn VNS Health has several dozen physicians and other medically licensed doctors who play an important role in our operations. Here are 10 things you might not know about them:

1) Most of VNS Health’s physicians work on the Hospice Care team. VNS Health Hospice Care has 23 physicians in either full-time, part time or per-diem roles. As hospice physicians, they work to help hospice patients retain comfort and dignity at the end of life. Their roles include collaborating with the patient’s primary attending physician (if any) to treat symptoms commonly encountered at end of life, such as—but not limited to—pain, fatigue, breathlessness, nausea, agitation and anxiety. They also provide general oversight of Hospice Care’s interdisciplinary care teams—including offering guidance on making complex treatment choices and helping to set goals for care for patients and their families.

2) Our Behavioral Health team includes five medical doctors, all of them psychiatrists. Three of the five MDs are team physicians in Behavioral Health’s Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) program, a “clinic without walls” that treats New York City residents with chronic mental health conditions. Another psychiatrist works with Intensive Mobile Treatment (IMT) teams, which provide care in the field to people with severe mental illness, many of whom are living in the streets. The physicians’ roles involve treating patients directly—which includes prescribing and administering anti-psychotic medications—and providing guidance to their multi-disciplinary teams. These psychiatrists frequently work in conjunction with nurse practitioners (NP), who also play a lead role in prescribing for and treating Behavioral Health clients. On the administrative side, Medical Director and Chief Psychiatrist Jovita Crasta, MD manages Behavioral Health’s clinical operations—a role that includes interfacing with government regulators and VNS Health’s leadership team—together with Assistant Medical Director and Chief Psychiatrist Caroline Williams, MD (who also spends two days per week treating clients).

3) At VNS Health’s health plans, six Doctors of Pharmacy manage the prescribing and delivery of members’ medications. These pharmacists work with the team’s pharmacy technician to administer the Medicare or Medicaid pharmacy benefits for VNS Health’s plan members. “It’s our job to ensure all pharmacy benefits are administered in accordance with DOH and CMS regulatory requirements,” says Dr. Sofya Shell, Vice President, Pharmacy Services. The team also makes sure members’ medications are reconciled, that their network providers and pharmacies are prescribing and delivering the drugs in timely fashion, and that members are taking their medications as prescribed.

4) VNS Health’s Care Management Organization also has a team physician. Palliative care specialist Dr. Anthony Jones is a member of the CMO’s Palliative Care team. Dr. Jones works with CMO nurse practitioners and care managers to develop care plans for CMO clients who are in need of palliative care. He also advises the CMO on clinical operations and outreach to other providers and educates the CMO’s clinical team around disease management and end of life.

5) Our longest-serving VNS Health physicians have both been with the organization for 17-plus years. VNS Health Hospice Care physicians Dr. Leonard Bakalchuk and Dr. Eugene Perlov are the doctors who have been with the organization the longest. Both started in the same year (2005) and the same month (February).

6) The Chief Medical Officers for VNS Health’s Provider Services and our Health Plans were both recently honored for their contributions to health care. Health Plans CMO Dr. Jay Dobkin is an HIV specialist, which is what first brought him to the organization as chief medical officer of VNS Health’s SelectHealth plan—one of the three HIV special needs plans in New York State. For his leadership in HIV/AIDS work, Dr. Dobkin won the Commissioner’s Special Recognition Award at the New York State Department of Health’s 23rd Annual World AIDS Day event on December 1st, 2021. Dr. Ritchell Dignam, CMO for Provider Services, was honored by the United Hospital Fund (UHF) on May 9th of this year with a 2022 Excellence in Health Care Award for Quality Improvement Champions. The award recognizes extraordinary personal leadership in improving quality of care, patient safety, and/or patient experience.

7) The health plans are headed by a physician. Dr. Hany Abdelaal, a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine by training, has been President of the health plans at VNS Health since 2015. He also served as Chief Medical Officer of VNS Health and its health plans for the three years prior to that.

8) VNS Health’s Board Chair is a physician, too…VNS Health Board Chair Dr. Andrew Schiff is an MD by training as well as a longtime VNS Health supporter and Board Member. He is also the great-great-grandson of Jacob Schiff, a close friend and important early benefactor of VNS Health’s founder, Lillian Wald. (Click here to read a Frontline interview with Dr. Schiff.)

9) …As are two other Board Members! Board Member Dr. Gayle Rosenthal, who practiced for many years as a gastroenterologist, and Board Member Emerita Dr. Eugenie Doyle are MDs as well. A renowned pediatric cardiologist and longtime VNS Health Board Member, Eugenie—who turned 101 this year—was honored with the Lillian Wald Award at this November’s Benefit Gala. Eugenie spent 47 years at NYU Langone Medical Center, serving as director of the pediatric cardiology department from 1958 until her retirement in 1993.

10) VNS Health also trains hospice physicians from other organizations. Since 2004, VNS Health has implemented its Hospice Physician Fellowship Training Program, which educates physicians and other clinicians from outside VNS Health on how to deliver end-of-life care. Through hospice rotations that last up to two months and are supervised by VNS Health’s Hospice Care teams, the program gives participants unique, hands-on training in home-based hospice care, which the clinicians then take back to their existing practices.