Virtual concierge presentation today
Saratoga Senior Center hosts event
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » Thanks to a collaboration with Stewart’s Shops, the Saratoga Senior Center has something new available for its members: a supplement to healthcare coverage.
On Friday morning, representatives from United Concierge Medicine, based out of Troy, will give a presentation at 11 a.m. to seniors at 5 Williams St. during Health & Wellness Week in Saratoga County.
“United Concierge Medicine is a virtual concierge practice that’s really trying to change the front door of health care,” said CEO and co-founder Keith Algozzine. “It’s really the ability to have emergency medicine experts provide a personal level of service and medical care to patients, leveraging technology so we can do it affordably and do it 24/7.”
The senior center and Stewart’s have partnered before. Last year, Stewart’s provided a large grant of $50,000 to the Senior Center’s Capital Project. One of the plans was to buy a van to transport home-bound seniors throughout the area to the facility on Monday and Friday every week.
Stewart’s recently connected their employees with UCM, which paved the way for the Saratoga Senior Center to create a collaboration with UCM through Stewart’s to offer a discounted rate for members.
Normally, the lowest per month cost for virtual concierge would be $14. But seniors who are members of Saratoga Senior Center will be charged $8 per month.
Seniors are invited to hear about the benefits of virtual concierge, even having the opportunity to sign up with UCM representatives on the spot.
Once signed up, members can download a mobile application. UCM accepts phone calls and messages, including video and pictures of potential issues a patient might be experiencing, every day of the year.
Medical advice will be given to a patient, ranging from prescribing a prescription to referring a patient to the right doctor.
Stewart’s began the program with their employees in October.
“Our employees are very happy with the pleasant, efficient service and are utilizing to deal with mainly the flu right now, but they have used it for rashes, wounds, injuries, bites,” said Stewart’s Marketing Coordinator Jeff Vigliotta.
In addition to the presentation from UCM, the senior center has a day-full of activities to celebrate wellness day Friday.
Yoga begins the day from 10 until 11 a.m. There’s ceramics followed by soup after the presentation. In the afternoon, seniors can participate in line dancing and smoothie making. There’s a NY Long-Term Care Brokers presentation at 2 p.m. The day ends with meditation and a happy hour until 3:30.
United Concierge Medicine first opened in 2014.
“It’s really important for us to become part of the community. That’s how you really change healthcare. We really believe healthcare needs to be fixed from a bottom up, grass roots type of campaign. You really don’t see that. Usually healthcare has unfortunately has just become just megalopolis corporation,” said Algozzine. “Just the way it’s portrayed, and really the way to fix healthcare is a bottom-up approach where you just provide really great care patients, you get ingrained in the community and that’s what we’re trying to do, and so far it’s been really successful.”