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Dr. Sidney Coupet:
When It Comes to Patient Care, Passionate About DPC

Control the Hydra

Ever get sucked into a term systemness has BY LOIS THOMSON
horrible movie on TV. be bandied about as
Even if you only watch the next phase of If you want to see someone's eyes light
for a few minutes, you integrated health up, talk to Dr. Sidney Coupet about the
change the channel delivery. As systems subject of direct primary care (DPC).
thinking, there is ten get more complex That will do it.
minutes I’ll never get and services are Dr. Coupet, the son of Haitian immi-
back! This happened to added, the ability to grants who settled in Brooklyn, stands
me with a movie called provide a consistent for the possibility of access to quality
‘Hydra’. (If you are really experience becomes health care for everyone. To this end, he
brave, check the trailer more and more criti- has established Spark Health, Inc., its
out on YouTube) A cal. Too often the foundation organization Doctors United
Hydra is an out of con- concern is around for Haiti, and a direct primary care clinic
trol, multi-head, snake BY JAY JUFFRE things like IT inte- called Coupet Quality Clinic.
like creature. In the gration, vendor con- Dr. Coupet earned his medical degrees
movie a group of people solidation, billing, in Pennsylvania and moved to South
stumble across one on a deserted staffing, and logo’s. While all that Florida because of its proximity to Haiti,
island and have no idea how to deal stuff is important, always remember and because of the large local Haitian
with it. One by one they get eaten up. that patient care is at the center of the population that he desired to serve. ("I Dr. Sidney Coupet
In the real world, it is getting very ‘consistent experience’ you should be always knew there was something spe-
interesting out there. seeking. You have to double down on cial about people from that country. I "Humanitarians [from outside of
In a way, we are creating Hydras of things like core values, training, hir- started going to Haiti at a young age to Haiti] sometimes open free clinics next
our own. Health Systems continue to ing standards and verification that it volunteer and do humanitarian work.") to a Haitian clinic staffed by a local doc-
expand and with a literal desire to is all happening. Never forget that In the context while in his position as tor trying to make a living for himself or
serve patients from the cradle to the you are dealing with a Hydra and chief hospitalist for Sound Physicians at herself." The free clinics draw patients
grave. They constantly are looking pointing all the heads into the direc- Broward Health System, he observed that away from the local practice, impacting
for holes and acquiring or building to tion of patient care will give you and many hospitalized patients were being the ability of that practice to stay in busi-
fill them. your team the direction you need to treated for issues that could have been ness.
Doctors and independents contin- be successful. prevented. Upon further investigation, "What usually happens is that those
ue to expand their footprint and he found that these patients lacked [Haitian] doctors leave the country and
offerings to compete. As you add Jay Juffre is Regional Vice President, access to regular health care services come to the United States. Most of them
more heads to the proverbial mon- South East Region / National Service because of affordability. end up driving cabs or working in a
ster, it becomes more and more diffi- Director, ImageFIRST. For more informa- The concept of direct primary care – a kitchen because they make more money
cult to keep the beast going in a tion on ImageFIRST, call 1-800-932- cost-friendly, no-insurance, flat-rate doing that than providing health care in
straight line. For a while now the 7472 or visit www.imagefirst.com. membership model of health care – Haiti."
made complete sense to him, along with From his work with what he calls the
the other benefits of the model. These Haitian "diaspora" population, Dr.
benefits include broader doctor access, Coupet knows that immigrants regularly
less wait time for appointments, longer send money home to friends and family
appointments, and low-cost lab tests and (a phenomenon known as remittances).
medications. "Every diaspora group has what you call
"The business model is simple," says remittances. Haiti's remittances from the
Dr. Coupet. "It's a membership program United States average between $1.3 bil-
and it eliminates the hassle of dealing lion and $1.9 billion annually; 30 per-
with health insurance companies. Direct cent to 40 percent of that amount goes to
primary care ranges from $30 to $100 health care."
per month, which is an amazing value Unfortunately, many of those funds are
for patients. This is something people sent after disease sets in, or for funeral
can afford." expenses following death from a pre-
Last October, Dr. Coupet and his wife, ventable or treatable disease. "Chronic
Dr. Sarah Coupet, founded Coupet diseases or conditions such as hyperten-
Quality Clinic, a direct primary care sion, diabetes or high cholesterol would
facility, in North Lauderdale. "We now never have the impact they do if they
have hundreds of people that we're giv- were under control."
ing quality service to. These patients Spark Health, Inc. is Dr. Coupet's solu-
don't visit ERs as frequently anymore tion to the health care problem in Haiti.
because we're available to them." It provides a way for local Haitian doc-
Coupet Quality Clinic operates under tors to expand their businesses through
its umbrella company, Spark Health, the acquisition of new patients whose
Inc., which Dr. Coupet founded during care is funded by U.S. benefactors. And it
his Internal Medicine residency. provides a way for Haitians to get the
Spark Health, Inc. is a global organiza- primary care they need.
tion that connects U.S. benefactors with Whether it's through Spark Health,
underserved individuals – typically fam- Inc. or through Coupet Quality Clinic,
ily and friends of benefactors – in Haiti Dr. Coupet is committed to direct pri-
(and soon to expand to other Caribbean mary care as the medicine model that
nations). Spark Health's program is a will make quality health care accessible
version of the direct primary care model, to everyone. His vision is for a network
in which benefactors purchase fixed- of DPC clinics in the United States, and
price health care memberships for indi- Spark Health programs operating in all
viduals or families. countries where underserved people
The inspiration for Spark Health arose need quality health care.
out of Dr. Coupet's visits to Haiti on vol-
unteer health care mission trips. During For more information, visit
these trips, he noticed a certain dynamic coupetqualityclinic.com
that was impacting the viability of local or sparkhealthinc.org.
practices.

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6 July 2017 southfloridahospitalnews.com South Florida Hospital News