Physician Jon M. Regis, MD, a long-time accessible wellness advocate and pioneer in New Jersey’s healthcare industry, became one of the few doctors from the southern New Jersey region to have ever participated in a briefing to the U.S. Congress during a standing-room-only panel discussion on the topic of value-based healthcare held Thursday, September 29, on Capitol Hill.
Dr. Regis, the Business Development Executive at national healthcare service provider VillageMD, was invited to Washington DC, along with some of the top healthcare experts in the country, to offer his insight on the topic, which has become a hot issue in the upcoming November 2022 United States midterm elections. The briefing was sponsored by America’s Physicians Group (APG), the National Association of Accountable Care Organizations (NAACOS), and Premier, Inc.
Following an introduction by APG President and CEO Susan Dentzer and opening remarks by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), Dr. Regis was joined by fellow healthcare experts and clinicians Kisha Davis, MD (Vice President of Health Equity, Aledade, Inc), Robert Fields, MD (Chief Population Health Officer, Mount Sinai Health System), and Richard Shuman, MD (CEO, Baycare Health Partners) to discuss the importance and key benefits of a value-based healthcare delivery model that includes providers being paid based on patient health outcomes and not the quantity of healthcare services they deliver.
Several forward-thinking healthcare providers such as VillageMD are successfully delivering improved patient care at lower costs through alternative payment models (APMs) such as accountable care organizations (ACOs), which link payments to outcomes and costs. The model is improving the health outcomes and delivering health equity for tens of millions of Americans, including Medicare beneficiaries.
The panel discussion, held inside the Rayburn House Office Building, was moderated by Dr. Mark McClellan, former U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administrator and Food & Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner and the founding director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University.
During the briefing, Dr. Regis spoke on the importance of programs that incentivize physicians for implementing a value-based healthcare model, especially in urban and underserved communities. He mentioned VillageMD’s success with the model, including over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its benefits to patients in contrast to traditional “fee-for-service” or “fee-for-volume” models. Highlighting VillageMD’s emphasis on providing quality care to underserved communities, Dr. Regis also discussed the provider’s partnership with Walgreens to open 1,000 Village Medical at Walgreen’s primary care practices across the country.
“VillageMD’s main purpose is to empower primary care doctors, looking at value, and how we can reach these communities,” Dr. Regis stated. “[With] our partnership with Walgreens, we’re opening 1,000 co-located [primary care] clinics, 51% of which have to be located in geographically underserved areas. Can you imagine how game-changing that will be getting care to those geographically underserved areas?”
As the founder of Reliance Medical Group, one of the largest medical practices in the southern New Jersey, which was acquired by VillageMD last year, Dr. Regis has dedicated several decades to ensuring health equity to patients throughout New Jersey – including in underserved communities such as Atlantic City and Newark, as well as migrant populations in rural areas such as Hammonton – with a mission to provide high-quality and affordable medical care to all, regardless of a patient’s income level.
In conjunction with the Capitol Hill briefing, Dr. Regis was invited to take part in a listening session event with the Board of Trustees of the African American Mayors Association (AAMA), the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI), and CMS. Among the topics discussed were health equity – including increasing patient access to primary care, particularly in underserved communities – as well as the ACO Reach Medicare program and public-private partnerships in the healthcare industry.
About Jon M. Regis, MD
An accomplished OB/GYN physician, during his decades-long career, Dr. Jon M. Regis has established himself as a successful leader in the healthcare field and one of the first physician executives in the practice management industry. A recognized authority in the industry, with training in the Public Health Administration, Dr. Regis’ life’s work has been dedicated to providing high-quality, comprehensive medical care to all patients, specifically those in urban and underserved communities. In the 1980s, his commitment to the notion that “Access to quality health is a right, not a privilege” led him to develop Reliance Medical Group, a progressive, multi-specialty medical practice and healthcare delivery system based in Atlantic City, New Jersey. With the acquisition of Reliance by VillageMD, Dr. Regis became the Illinois-based national healthcare provider’s Business Development Executive. An advocate for accessible wellness, Dr. Regis received his undergraduate bachelor’s and medical degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed his residency at Hahnemann Hospital & Medical Center in Philadelphia, PA. He began his professional career at Cooper University Medical Center in Camden, NJ. He remains a recognized authority in the healthcare field and a sought-after lecturer and has received numerous awards that attest to his success and influence as a leader in the industry.
