December 2, 2013 | VOL. 49, No. 48
CRYSTAL KANG
YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR REGIONAL BUSINESS NEWS | westfaironline.com INSIDE
edocnY markS SuCCeSS wiTH new SiTe Westchester Arc’s business model proves a winner
SALE PENDING • 3
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BY CRYSTAL KANG ckang@westfairinc.com
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GOOD THINGS HAPPENING • 31
NEWS NOON
Shelley Cantor, who prepares business and government documents before they are scanned, has been working at eDocNY for six years.
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rowing from a fledgling social enterprise with initial revenue of $75,000 to a multimillion-dollar document management business, eDocNY has moved to bigger quarters to continue its mission of providing work for those with developmental disabilities. Westchester Arc’s for-profit document man-
new health care model pays off Accountable care gains traction
BY JOHN GOLDeN jgolden@westfairinc.com
In a hEaLTh CarE InDUSTry moving from the fee-for-service payment model, collaboration both saves and pays, a major health plan insurer in the metropolitan area and one of Westchester County’s largest physician groups have found. Westmed Medical Group and UnitedHealthcare realized approximately $2 million in cost savings on patients’ health insurance claims in the first year of their partnership in an Accountable Care Organization. Of that total, Westmed received a bonus of nearly $1 million from the insurance company by reducing practice variation, decreasing duplications in care and promoting the proper setting for care, the ACO partners recently announced. A key initiative of the Affordable Care Act, ACOs are voluntary groups of doctors, hospitals and other care providers joined with private
eDocNY, page 6
Region’s job growth ‘lackluster’
insurers or the federal government to provide coordinated care that measurably improves quality of care for patients and reduces health care costs. Westmed last year also formed ACOs with Cigna Corp. and, for the 12,000 Medicaid patients treated by the multispecialty practice group’s approximately 260 physicians, with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Westmed and UnitedHealthcare collaboration in its first year included about 13,000 Westchester residents covered under an Oxford Health fully insured commercial plan. Dr. Simeon Schwartz, founding president and CEO of Westmed, said the savings amounted to 3 percent to 4 percent of projected health care costs for those patients. A third partner in the ACO formed in mid2012, Optum, a technology-based health services business in Eden Prairie, Minn., provides analytical tools and software applications used by Westmed
October job growth in the Hudson Valley region was weaker than expected by analysts at the state Department of Labor, as employment numbers in the private sector stayed nearly flat from October 2012. A total of 300 jobs were added last month to the seven-county region’s 751,100 private-sector jobs in October last year, the state Labor Department reported. Excluding farm employment, the region in October lost 2,900 private sector and government jobs from a year ago, a slight 0.3 percent decline. Johny Nelson, state labor market analyst in White Plains, noted the region’s private sector employment grew by about 1.1 percent a
Health care, page 6
Job growth, page 6
BY JOHN GOLDeN jgolden@westfairinc.com