Oscar Health announced a new lead to its medical group on Thursday. The new lead comes as Oscar experiences growth in its virtual-first product, a new benefits structure that other insurers have been working to emulate.
Dr. Okiki Louis will assume the role of president of Oscar Medical Group at the end of April, heading the New York-based startup's collection of physician-owned practices, which provide virtual urgent care and digital primary care services to its members.
Since its launch earlier this year, Oscar's virtual primary care team has completed more than 6,300 primary care consultations. The startup credits these digital consultations with driving members to fill 80% of their prescription medications and complete more than 60% of labs ordered. The company said members with chronic conditions have higher adoption rates of its virtual-first plan than healthy members and that the majority of enrollees who have utilized digital primary care are older than 36. Additionally, 85% of patients said they plan only to use virtual care when health issues arise. Oscar offers its virtual-first care in Spanish and English.
"I'm looking forwarding to leading OMG and partnering with Oscar to expand OMG's virtual practice and serve even more members," Louis said in a statement. "The pandemic has presented a host of challenges in accessing healthcare, and Oscar has been on the forefront of offering solutions like virtual primary care that enable patients to continue accessing care at a cost they can afford, and I am excited to build upon its success."
Louis most recently served as vice president of medical operations at Concentra, a national network of urgent care facilities. She completed her residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and received her doctor of medicine degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She succeeds Dr. Neil Parikh, who was named OMG president in 2019.
The leadership change follows Oscar Health's disappointing performance in the public markets, with its initial public offering coming in below analyst expectations. Some have credited Oscar's cash-burn, in part, to its partnership with high-cost providers, like Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
At the end of January, the startup counted 529,000 individual, family, small group and Medicare Advantage members. In addition to offering plans to enrollees, Oscar also outsources its tech services to other payers and providers, like Cigna.
