Pros
The compensation can be very competitive, but the time requirements to achieve high pay require 70 hour work weeks. Additionally, corporate outreach has little understanding of the variety and complexity of the challenges experienced in their centers. I started in early 2019 when the company had 30 centers in 5 states. The cultural was that of cooperation and unified purpose, serving underserved communities of adults on Medicare. The company endured and in most cases exceeded expectations during the out break of COVID. At the start of 2021, our community focus was renewed with community vaccination clinics. During these clinics we recruited new patients successfully and cultivated valuable community partnership. Starting in August 2021, the slow death of Oak Street Health began. The focus of outreach changes from identifying quality patients, to getting any eligible patient to see OSH doctors, without regard for wherever they wanted to be a patient. This change to a more transactional growth approach has all but ruined the company. The culture has deteriorated from a cooperative relationship between growth and clinical, into something more combative and less empathetic. Where clinical needs to see high priority patients regularly and outreach needs to have a target number of new patients seen.
Cons
The outcome has been a failure for both parties. New patients are often paneled without being seen a physician, meaning outreach technically gets credit and OSH takes on the financial risk of the patient (and Medicare compensates OSH at a set amount for doing so) but the patient is not getting any active intervention, thus escalating the cost of their care making the care model, on an extended timeline, making the care model unsustainable. And it seems like the stock market has taken notice.