Dear Doctor: Amy Esposito
The Medical Director at the Oscar Center on combining traditional primary care with concierge offerings, and wellness classes.
The director of the Oscar Center in downtown Brooklyn, internist Amy Esposito, MD, helms a novel practice model that combines integrated primary care with community-based classes and wellness offerings. Under the auspices of the insurance startup Oscar Health, the center offers its members a new version of care that’s not so far from the home-grown practice archetype with which Esposito grew up. Read on to learn more about her work, and why she thinks being part of a big corporation can actually mean you spend more time, not less, with your patients.
“My father had his own practice as an endocrinologist in upstate New York. The business was really a family affair. My two older brothers and I worked summers in the office, and my mom was in on it too — she had a master’s in biochemistry, and in addition to being head of the League of Women Voters in Albany, also did all of the accounting in the office. I didn’t even realize it at the time but dinner table conversations at home were very…medical. I really saw how the sausage gets made, so to speak, and I thought, “hell no I’m not doing this.” Except that my dad woke up whistling every day. His job was really a calling for him and he loved it.”
How did you get into practicing medicine?
After a year abroad between high school and college, I majored in history, then took a physiological psychology class, studying all sorts of crazy things, like changing dominant limbs in rats from right to left through brain surgery, altering behavior through sex hormones — that kind of thing. I loved this field of study, the psychology of the brain. After a stint studying PTSD for Rachel Yehuda at Mount Sinai with Holocaust survivors and combat veterans, I applied to medical school. I ultimately found that primary care was the thing for me. I was interested in so many areas and realized that primary care allowed me to touch upon all of them.
You’re the medical director of the Oscar Center. What is that?
The Oscar Center is a hybrid model that combines a traditional primary care practice with concierge offerings and a full spectrum of wellness classes, all under the umbrella of the health insurance company Oscar, meaning that we only see patients who are Oscar members. This actually confers huge benefits to us as well as to the patients because, while as a business model we’re completely separate from the insurance side of Oscar, the fact that we’re so well-versed in how Oscar works makes it much easier to deliver a seamless, easy, and more affordable experience to our patients. For example, we can work with a patient who has a $7000 deductible and look for coupons through a service like Capsule.
We also have amenities like an Oscar-run support team that provides a virtual doctor who is available on the weekends to access file notes on a patient seeking after-hours care. Lastly, we’re a petri dish for Oscar to beta test new models of care delivery. The Oscar Center is the first of its kind for them, so when they’re thinking of rolling something new out, they check with us — like, does this provider portal work for you, or we’re thinking of offering this service to providers, is this something you think providers would want?
So far, it’s been a fantastic partnership and we have a team of talented physicians and staff members, including three board-certified doctors, a PA, a nurse practitioner, a behavioral health specialist, and support staff. In addition to patient visits, we offer yoga and meditation classes for members.
So how did you end up there?
I came to NYC after medical school in Albany, and did my residency at Beth Israel Medical Center, as well as my chief year. I loved their focus on teaching. My first job out, I stayed with that hospital and worked at their outpatient center at 23rd and 8th. After four or five years, I was completely burned out. The number of patients and the corresponding paperwork made feeling successful and productive difficult. I found a site called the Drop Out Club — it’s a physician-run clearinghouse for doctors who are looking for something else to do.
Harry Ritter, the amazing doctor and lawyer who had the great idea of a brick and mortar facility for Oscar members only, posted the Oscar job there. It seemed like a great fit, as love meeting new people, learning about their lives, understanding their habits and how they think and adapting care to them individually. So now I’m both able to both see patients, and invest in understanding the system that our patients navigate in order to see us. That extra knowledge can really shape how you practice.
Vital Signs
How do you manage work/life balance?
I now have two kids at home. I’m able to manage it both because I have an amazing partner and also because the environment at Oscar is great — many of our employees have families.
What tech do you use on a daily basis that you couldn’t do without?
Our EMR through Athena is great. We also communicate intra-office with Hipchat!
I heard you’re an art buff. Do you still have time to see things?
Yes! We get a weekly babysitter Tuesday nights. We’ll grab a Citibike and try to see an art show before grabbing dinner at a local favorite like Red Rooster. The Giacometti show at the Guggenheim is great — it closes this week!
You can learn more about Dr. Amy Esposito and the Oscar Center here.
Know a great female doctor in NYC? We’d love to meet her, introduce us here!
