CenterWell Opening 9 Senior-Focused Clinics in Arizona

CenterWell Senior Primary Care plans to open nine senior-focused primary care centers in the Phoenix area through early 2023, marking the company’s debut in the Arizona market.

Part of the Primary Care Organization of Humana Inc., CenterWell Senior Primary Care accepts members of many different Medicare Advantage plans. Together with its sister brand Conviva Care Centers, CenterWell delivers care to seniors in more than 215 centers across nine states, with plans to open up to 100 more such centers through 2025.

Approximately 240,000 patients are currently served by the Primary Care Organization, which operates senior-focused primary care centers under both the CenterWell Senior Primary Care and Conviva Care Centers brands. This includes 222 centers along with independent physician associations that are part of the Primary Care Organization. By the end of 2022, Humana expects to serve Medicare patients in approximately 250 CenterWell and Conviva clinics and intends to add 30 to 50 additional CenterWell clinics per year through 2025.

“We really focus on getting to know our patients,” said Ravinder Dawke, M.D., CenterWell’s market chief medical officer for Arizona, in a statement. “Because of our attention to the whole person, we are able to spend 30 to 40 minutes with each patient every time they come in, which is two to three times longer than what they may be used to at traditional doctors’ offices. Our integrated care teams know that seniors often have a variety of physical, social and emotional needs, all of which affect their overall health. We work to address each of the factors that contribute to a patient’s wellbeing.”

“Phoenix is one of the fastest-growing urban areas in the country, and a good portion of that growth is in the senior population,” said Market President Daryl Young, in a statement. “With our focus on underserved communities, we bring a new level of access to quality, coordinated care to seniors in this important market.”

As Healthcare Innovation reported in May 2022, Louisville-based Humana’s plan to build a national network of primary care clinics for seniors is being carried out in partnership with private-equity firm Welsh Carson Anderson & Stowe.  

Humana first teamed up with the firm in early 2020 to open senior primary care centers under a joint venture putting to work $800 million. Since then, the companies have opened 37 CenterWell-branded clinics. The new joint venture added $1.2 billion in capital to CenterWell’s push to build and nurse to profitability another 100 clinics by the end of 2025.

Welsh Carson is the new joint venture’s majority owner while CenterWell will earn a management fee for running the centers. Humana has the option to buy Welsh Carson’s stake in the jointventure starting in 2028 or five years after the clinics open while the investment firm can require Humana to buy it out starting in 2030 or seven years after the centers’ openings. (For the companies’ first joint venture, that timeline is 2024 to 2029.)

“Doctors and nurses spending more time with patients, paying greater attention to both the physical and mental aspects of health, and following a team-based approach all allow for personalized, value-based care that helps improve lives,” Reneé Buckingham, president of Humana’s Primary Care Organization, said in a statement at the time. “Early success has led to increased interest in our payer-agnostic model, and under this new joint venture, we look forward to significantly expanding our geographic footprint and serving even more patients in more communities.”