Love and Medicine

How ChenMed keeps its employees and clients happy and healthy

- LOUIS CARTER

THIS FALL, NEWSWEEK, IN COLLaboration with my company, the Best Practice Institute (BPI), will unveil the second annual Most Loved Workplaces list. The concept is simple: we feature the top 100 companies where employees feel cared for and respected—and have numerous opportunities for advancement.

But before the new list appears, we’ll turn the spotlight on a few of the companies in the inaugural rankings. We started off with Pamela Maynard, CEO of Seattle consulting firm, Avanade, which was number 31 on last year’s list.

Now we turn our attention to Chris Chen, CEO of Miami-based ChenMed, founded by his father, James. The company, number 36 on the 2021 rankings, operates a 3,500-employee chain of some 100 medical clinics that cater to Medicare recipients, many of whom are low income.

ChenMed is interesting in many ways. For one thing, they are focused on what Chen calls, unabashedly, “love” for his employees. But Chen also puts a little twist on this. He finds that showing similar care for its customers can produce tangible results.

“You know, people think love is kooky,” Chen says. “It’s not, it’s highly practical.” Partly as a result of such policies, ChenMed has, he said, managed to reduce ER visits by 30 percent and hospitalization rates by nearly 50 percent. “These are,” he says, “really practical outputs of creating…a culture of love” for both employees and patients.

Here are a few ways Chris, and his company, pull that off.

Take Good Care of Your Employees