- Dr. Rick Ward,
San Francisco - Dr. Yvonne Yeung,
Oakland - Dr. Richard Gould,
Sacramento - Dr. Harpeet Grewal,
Tracy
A View from San Francisco
In 1989, Richard Ward, M.D., had just taken over his father’s family practice in San Francisco, where he was born and raised.
His office was across the street from St. Francis Memorial Hospital on Hyde Street, where he referred many patients, and became acquainted with fellow physicians. More and more, conversations were turning to managed care, and how doctors – who just wanted to focus on their patients – had to become experts at contracting and managing HMOs.
As president of Saint Francis Physicians Medical Group, Rick realized they had the scale, but not the wherewithal to manage complex negotiations with health plans, which were essential to success. He led the group into partnership with Hill Physicians.
“We didn’t have the size or understanding of everything to continue to work as we did. We realized they knew what they were doing, they had the size, the expertise and the people to help us.”
Once things were settled, Rick’s leadership was welcome at Hill Physicians, where doctors are encouraged to be active participants. He served as Primary Care Panel Chief for the San Francisco region, and later the Bay Region Medical Director and ex officio member of the Hill Physicians Board of Directors, a position he held for about 15 years.
Rick recently partnered with another Hill Physicians group, Jiva Health Inc., to create a succession plan so that once he retires, his patients will be well served.
Across the Bay in Oakland
Yvonne Yeung, M.D., came to Oakland after her residency in New York because her father – also a doctor – had previously purchased an office space in Oakland Chinatown with plans to start a practice there.
“Go get it started and I’ll join you,” he told her.
It was 1989 and she had to build from the ground up – turning the space into an office with exam rooms, buying furniture and hiring an office manager. Most of her new patients were surprised to learn that she didn’t speak Mandrin or Cantonese. Although she could understand them, she had to ask her office manager to help her communicate at first.
She felt well prepared to handle the medical side of her practice, but the business side was overwhelming.
“Medical school doesn’t teach you how to bill or code,” she recalled. “Joining Hill Physicians made all the difference. They negotiated better contracts for us and helped with the administrative overhead, which gave me and my team time to provide more personal service to our patients.”
Although her father never moved to California, Yvonne has been able to grow the practice. The East Bay Primary Care Medical Group on 9th Street has since added two more physicians – both women: Dr. Gina Wang, M.D. and Dr. Shiu-Lan Lui, M.D., both of whom speak English, Cantonese and Mandarin.
The practice is consistently recognized as a top performer in the Hill Physicians Network and serves a critical role in the multilingual and multicultural community.
A Sacramento Story
Pediatrician Richard Gould, M.D., started a two-physician practice in 1989, and was relieved when Hill Physicians expanded into the Sacramento region in 1990.
“We realized the need to have some type of contracting entity because the HMO world was foreign to everyone. There were capitated models, and we joined several, just to figure them out,” he recalled. “We knew many of our patients would be wooed away with inexpensive HMOs and we had to do something.”
That’s where Hill Physicians came in.
“There was something savvy about Hill that piqued my interest,” he said. Soon after he became the Sacramento pediatric regional leader and served on the quality committee. “Hill was good at translating business principles and educating physicians on how to apply them. They also listened to the doctors and determined that the community standard was the goal, which was higher than the industry standard.”
Other valuable benefits included leadership and education programs, development of a care network, better connections between primary care and specialists for the benefit of patients and robust technology support.
“There’s enough management within Hill Physicians to help most practices be successful quickly,” said Richard.
What Richard appreciates most is that Hill’s support allows him to focus on his patients. In fact, his practice was able to take on Medi-Cal pediatric cases, which would have been difficult without the support of Hill Physicians.
“Hill allows that individual connection to our patients to continue and remain strong,” he said. “By supporting independent physicians, and providing tools and guidance, Hill allows us to provide better care to the population of Sacramento.”
Delta IPA Finds Help in Hill
More than 20 years ago, Dr. Harpreet Grewal’s family practice in Tracy was part of the Delta IPA, a network of about 700 physicians who collectively served more than 80,000 patients in San Joaquin County.
“We were heavily local and our organization was just too small to get much advantage, when it came to negotiating with health plans,” he explained. They were also on the verge of implementing electronic health records and knew the time was right to merge with another Independent Physician Association (IPA). After a couple of years of research, the board, with Harpreet as chair, voted to merge with Hill Physicians in 2004.
“Hill stood out because it was physician-owned, and not part of a hospital system,” he recalled. “It also provided ancillary services, such as care management, pharmacy services and more. Hill is what I call a full-service IPA.”
“At the time, a number of physicians were concerned that they might lose control in the merger. However, a year later, many came to me saying, ‘This was the best thing you could have done, to become part of Hill.’”
Harpreet wasted no time getting involved in the decision-making process, joining the Board of Directors in 2005. He continues his work on the board to this day. Between 2018 and 2022, he was board chair and served on the executive and membership committees for years.
“Hill Physicians allowed us to remain independent, but not alone,” he added. “We belong to a bigger operation that helps us provide care and stay connected.”