VNSNY’s Board Supports Strategic Plan; Implementation Is Now Underway

Earlier this month, the VNSNY Board of Directors formally provided support for the second phase of VNSNY’s strategic planning process. “This is an important milestone,” says Marki Flannery, VNSNY’s President and CEO. “We are now working with teams across the entire enterprise to refine the tactics and measurements of our plan so that we can prepare a high-level, three-year financial forecast for our business.”

This next body of work builds on VNSNY’s strategic framework (outlined in VNSNY Strategy Video Part 1) and the strategic workshops held this summer (highlighted in VNSNY Strategy Video #2). During those workshops, employees from across VNSNY came together to help shape the strategies for each of the framework’s seven goals and to start the work of identifying what needs to be done to achieve each goal. A progress report on that work was shared earlier this month in two meetings with management staff. Here are highlights from those meetings:

Goal 1) Launch and Expand a Care Management Enterprise

“On the provider side, we’ve been focused in the past on providing care for a defined period of time,” says David Rosales, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer. “Now, like the healthcare industry itself, we’re moving to a care management model, in which we also provide ongoing care for patients after the point when they traditionally would have been discharged from home care.”

This shift to care management includes closer integration between all of VNSNY’s business units, notes Dan Savitt, EVP and Chief Financial Officer. “We’re already starting to see some amazing progress as we unleash people to work together across our provider and payer business to move us in one direction,” says Dan. “This is improving our ability to manage care in a complex patient population, as we leverage VNSNY’s innovative technologies and care models and sophisticated data analytics.”

Goal 2) Strengthen and Grow Provider Services

“VNSNY Provider Services’ current and future customers, which include our patients and their families, insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, assisted living, physician organizations, and the state and federal government, are all looking for the magical formula of reduced cost, improved quality, and value,” says Andria Castellanos, EVP and Chief of Provider Services. “Assisting them in achieving this formula is the key to growing our Provider Services, both through internal expansion and targeted acquisitions. To accomplish this, we’re more focused than ever on providing efficient, effective, and timely patient- and family-centered care in a value-based environment.”

Goal 3) Strengthen and Grow Managed Care

“As CHOICE continues to grow as an insurance plan,” says Dr. Hany Abdelaal, President of VNSNY CHOICE Health Plans, “one key focus involves working with our providers to maximize our care management potential. For example, we’re partnering successfully right now with VNSNY Home Care to manage the care of patients on a case rate basis. We also just launched a project with VNSNY Hospice to ensure that people who need hospice and palliative care in their last six months of life get that care. At the same time, we’re focused on geographic growth as well—including the upcoming expansion of our Select Health Medicaid special needs plan into Nassau and Westchester, where they will be first plans of their kind to be offered in those counties.”

Goal 4) Enhance Member and Patient Experience

“Quality improvement is vital to the future of our company,” says Michael Bernstein, EVP and Chief Administrative Officer. “This is why we’re continuing to drive awareness across VNSNY of how critically important performance metrics are to our organization from a patient and member satisfaction standpoint and from a payment standpoint. We have to demonstrate our value in concrete measurements.”

Goal 5) Improve Employee Engagement and Culture

“Our success is fueled by a collaborative and engaged workforce that’s willing to go the extra yard,” notes Kerry Parker, VNSNY’s General Counsel and Chief Risk Officer. “To that end, we’ve been focused on developing more and better ways to communicate internally. These include regular email updates and alerts, VNSNY Cafés and Town Halls, and quarterly management conference calls, as well as the Frontline website. We’ll also continue to do an employee engagement survey each quarter to make sure we’re on the right track.”

Goal 6) Strengthen Community Support and Awareness

“One of the key strengths that sets VNSNY apart is the trust that the community has in us,” says David Rosales. “This trust took 125 years to build. As part of our strategic plan, we are ensuring that New Yorkers continue to be aware of the many ways we are addressing essential community needs, both through our main business operations and through targeted programs like our Nurse-Family Partnership and our Community Mental Health programs.”

“With our recently relaunched advertising campaign, VNSNY’s name is everywhere, from street banners to ads on buses and subways,” adds Marki. “We’re out in the marketplace, making targeted investments to encourage people to remember who we are and to utilize our services, including VNSNY Provider Services and VNSNY CHOICE. You can look forward to seeing more of these marketing efforts in the future.”

Goal 7) Ensure Financial Sustainability in a Value-Based Payment Environment

“As we shift toward value-based arrangements and we execute on our quality scores and other objectives, we anticipate breaking even as an enterprise by the end of 2020,” says Marki. “In terms of getting to where we want to be, I use the word ‘when,’ not ‘if’—because if we work together, I know we will achieve the goals we’ve set for the organization.”