Evaluation of the Encore Physicians Program
The Encore Physicians Program — a partnership between Kaiser Permanente, the Encore Fellowship Program and community health centers (CHCs) — recruits retired physicians to fill staffing needs at CHCs while providing the physicians with a meaningful work opportunity in their retirement. Starting with a pilot in early 2018, the Encore Physicians Program continues to grow and has now hosted over a dozen physicians in five health center systems throughout the Bay Area. In 2021 it began an expansion to the South Bay and San Francisco.
From 2018 – 2021, the California Health Care Foundation partnered with Engage R+D to evaluate the program. Engage R+D produced a brief—summarizing the program’s key components, key impacts, and considerations for scaling or replicating the model in other settings—and an accompanying slide deck that provides a more in-depth look at the evaluation’s findings.
