Largest, Independent Hospitalist Group Reports Strong Growth and Superior Patient Care

PHOENIX, AZ--(Marketwired - November 03, 2015) - Nearly 14 years ago, one physician decided to form a physician group with the principal objective of delivering excellent inpatient hospital care. Today, that group, Apogee Physicians, is the largest, privately-held hospitalist company in the country and manages over 700 providers across 32 states. Apogee's extraordinary performance is truly distinguished from that of other physician groups that treat hospitalized patients.

In the first nine months of 2015, Apogee recorded a 4.1 percent increase in comparable contract, same-store encounters and added new hospitalist programs representing over 160 providers. This solid growth is driven by hospital-customer and referring physician recognition of Apogee's superiority in patient satisfaction, patient safety, and clinical quality.

"Our group was conceived around a simple vision, 'What's best for the patient is best for the practice,'" said the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Apogee Physicians, Dr. Michael Gregory. "Our patients are the best source of knowing if we are meeting this high expectation. Of the 117,880 Apogee patients surveyed in 2015 more than 98 percent said their Apogee physician communicated well and answered all their questions and 95 percent indicated that their Apogee physician made their hospital stay better."

Apogee also affirms the foundational commitment to patient safety as their physicians use evidence-based best practices in order to deliver safe patient care.

"Our doctors are conscientious about patient safety and are trained to prevent errors," said Gregory. "As part of Apogee's devotion to excellence, we initiated patient safety checklists and protocols 10 years ago, long before checklists were commonly utilized in inpatient medicine."

"Our passion for patient safety supports and promotes excellence in clinical quality," Gregory said. "We consistently follow evidence-based clinical quality indicators and, in fact, track our doctor's compliance with recognized quality measures so we reinforce the importance of providing quality care."

Apogee's recent performance reflects consistent utilization of evidence-based "Clinical Pathways," which promote safe and efficient patient care. Clinical Pathways were used by Apogee doctors in approximately 95 percent of eligible cases. Additionally, Apogee doctors consistently provide the clinical notes to the patient's Primary Care Physician within 48 hours of the discharge from the hospital. This promotes care-team coordination and effective post-hospitalization care by the patient's primary care doctor.

The impact of Apogee's culture of excellence and quality patient care is indicated in Apogee's low rate of patient "readmissions" within 30 days of discharge. Patient's treated by Apogee doctors were 32 percent less likely to be readmitted to the hospital for any reason within 30 days compared to the national readmission average as reported by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services; the corollary is patients treated by non-Apogee physicians are 50 percent more likely to be readmitted. Further, only 2.7 percent of Apogee patients are readmitted within 30 days for the same or similar diagnoses for which they were initially hospitalized.

Providing consistent, high quality care is a key factor in Apogee's success. This reliability is delivered daily by highly qualified, Apogee-trained providers who are committed to the hospitals and communities in which they work and Apogee's very limited reliance on outside locums tenens. Through the first nine months of 2015, for programs in place at the beginning of the year, Apogee has covered over 74,000 hospitalist shifts with only 0.70 percent of those represented by locums tenens.

"Apogee's performance reflects the commitment our doctors have made to a culture of excellence and a focus on providing the best care for our patients," said Gregory. "We always have room to improve and our obsession with excellence compels us to continually seek ways to improve care for our patients and the service we provide to our hospital partners. At our core we are a physician group run by physicians. Apogee physicians are devoted to doing our very best each day for the patients in our care. As a privately-held company, not distracted by quarterly public-company pressures, Apogee maintains a long-term view in developing customer relationships and a keen focus on its foundational commitment to patient-centered care."

For more information please visit www.apogeephysicians.com.