Neil Patel

Chief Health Officer at Patina. We’re on a mission to profoundly improve the healthcare and aging experience for people 65+ and their loved ones.

Highland Park, New Jersey, United States

About

Father, son, doctor, and Chief Health Officer at Patina: a new model of primary care for adults 65+ that reimagines the journey of aging through virtual and home-based care. We’re building a healthcare experience for older adults that honors the wisdom they’ve accumulated and how they want to experience aging and care. The job of primary care is to cultivate leadership in our patients. This humbling lesson has been taught and re-taught to me by my own leaders: the patients I’ve treated as doctor, the teams I’ve led as medical director, the family I’ve supported as a caregiver, and the mentors who led me as an organizer. At Patina, I am part of a crew that will listen, learn and honor our patients’ expertise, helping them be true leaders in their own care. Prior to joining Patina, I helped found Iora Health, an early innovator in primary care. Before that, I helped start the Atlantic City Special Care Center, serving the most complex and costly patients from the Local 54 hotel workers union with the AtlantiCare health system. The Special Care Center was an early proof point, featured by Atul Gawande in The Hot Spotters, demonstrating that patient activation through continuous healing relationships could deliver tremendous value and bend the cost curve.

Experience

  • Chief Health Officer at Patina
    Sep 2021 - Present · 4 yrs 10 mos

    Patients and their trusted loved ones deserve to be at the head of their care teams. They deserve to be seen, heard, understood and loved. That’s why we’re reinventing primary care for people over 65, responsive to their needs, values, and leadership. Our mission: to profoundly improve the healthcare and aging experience for older adults and their loved ones.

  • Senior Vice President of Special Initiatives, Market Medical Director at Iora Health
    2010 - 2021 · 11 yrs

    Served on the executive leadership team and led special projects including Iora Primary Care in Phoenix, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Northeast; Culinary Extra in Las Vegas; Freelancers Medical in New York; Hartford Healthcare Health Center; Carpenters Care in New England; Dartmouth Health Connect; and Harken Health.

  • Medical Director at Grameen VidaSana with Grameen America
    2014 - 2020 · 6 yrs

    How can the principles that drive success for microcredit borrowers be applied to promote access and improve health of these same communities? We partnered with Grameen Research and Grameen America to answer this question by building a primary care practice for immigrant women in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York.

  • Medical Director at Harken Health
    2015 - 2017 · 2 yrs

    How could we experience care if the entire journey was rebuilt around our unique preferences and needs? We partnered with United Healthcare to build Harken Health, unifying traditional primary care, virtual care, care navigation, wellness and health insurance in one product for members in Chicago and Atlanta.

  • Medical Director of the Collective Primary Care, serving Freelancers Medical at Freelancers Union
    2012 - Aug 2015 · 3 yrs 8 mos

    How can the tradition of mutual help that drove independent workers to build their own trade union and health insurance plan be galvanized to create an advanced primary care medical practice? We partnered with the Freelancers Union to create Freelancers Medical, a space where independent workers managed their personal health in community with each other.