Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Reimagining Consumer Experience and Technology at CVS Health with Tilak Mandadi

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Reimagining Consumer Experience and Technology at CVS Health with Tilak Mandadi · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:02
This is where health insurance leadership comes together.
0:05
Becker's fourth annual spring payer issues roundtable brings
0:09
together over 400 payer and health plan executives
0:12
and more than 100 speakers to Chicago April.
0:16
This year's event includes keynote conversations with the
0:19
industry's top leaders and former president George W.
0:23
Bush. For the full agenda and event details,
0:25
visit beckershospitalreview.com
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and click on the events tab in the
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upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
0:31
here in Chicago.
0:33
Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the
0:36
Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
0:38
Thrilled today to be joined by Talak Mandati,
0:40
who is the executive vice president of ventures
0:43
and the chief experience and technology officer at
0:46
CVS Health. Talak, thank you so much for
0:48
taking the time to be with me on
0:49
the podcast today. Thanks for having me, Jacob.
0:52
How are you?
0:54
I'm doing great, Tlaloc. I'm better now that
0:55
I get to sit down with you and
0:57
chat a little bit about everything going on
0:58
at CVS Health.
1:00
But before we dive into all that, can
1:01
you first tell our audience a little bit
1:03
about yourself, your career background, and then, give
1:07
everybody an overview of your current role and
1:09
what you do at CVS.
1:12
I look after,
1:14
CVS Health Ventures,
1:16
which is our
1:17
corporate ventures group. We have
1:20
40 plus companies,
1:22
2,000,000,000 assets under management.
1:25
I also am the chief experience
1:28
and technology officer
1:30
for the company.
1:31
So I my teams look after
1:36
all things technology. So that's
1:38
core IT functions,
1:42
core technology platforms,
1:44
digital,
1:46
AI,
1:47
data analytics,
1:49
anything that's connected to all of that is
1:52
looked after by my team.
1:54
And I look after the,
1:56
creating and measuring
1:59
customer
1:59
experiences,
2:00
both physical and digital,
2:03
across the company as well. I was in
2:05
other industries before. I was with, Disney,
2:09
prior to coming to,
2:11
CVS Health.
2:12
And before that, I was at American Express.
2:14
So I have seen other industries before coming
2:17
to health care.
2:19
Absolutely. And let's talk a little bit about
2:20
that because it's always so interesting when we
2:22
have senior health care executives coming from other
2:26
industries.
2:27
Like you mentioned, you you led digital transformation
2:30
at Disney and then at American Express before
2:33
CVS Health.
2:34
So I wonder, is there a lesson from
2:37
hospitality or from the entertainment industry that you
2:40
would share with all the health care executives
2:42
listening in, that they might miss or,
2:45
not be as as aware about when it
2:47
comes to customer experience?
2:50
I think,
2:51
the coming from Disney to serious health and
2:54
learning
2:55
health care experience,
2:57
I was humbled by
2:59
the complexity
3:00
of the health care industry, Jacob,
3:03
and I was also humbled by
3:06
the dedication
3:07
of the people that work in health care
3:09
industry to do the right things.
3:12
And
3:14
what surprised me, though, is
3:17
in all this complexity of healthcare industry,
3:21
how
3:22
the patient
3:24
and the provider
3:26
experience
3:28
became an afterthought,
3:31
especially the customer experience.
3:34
And
3:36
even worse,
3:37
the customer
3:38
engagement
3:39
in their own health
3:42
is very, very low.
3:44
And it's clear
3:46
that,
3:48
the bad experience or the complexity of the
3:50
experience is the
3:52
is the issue
3:54
in getting to better consumer engagement. And without
3:57
getting to better consumer engagement,
3:59
you are not gonna get to better health
4:01
care outcomes.
4:02
And all of that requires
4:04
the health care industry complexity to go down.
4:04
So, that that's a that that's
4:10
revelation to me on we gotta improve experience
4:13
materially
4:14
and get to much better engagement
4:16
for the consumer in their own health.
4:19
Absolutely. And I know those things have been
4:21
a major focus for CVS over these last
4:24
few years. That's certainly something that we've been
4:27
covering a lot of here at Becker's.
4:29
And and, obviously, as you know, Deluxe, the
4:31
the company operates at massive scale. You have
4:34
over 9,000 pharmacies,
4:37
but you also oversee a venture arm that
4:39
invests in start ups all over the country.
4:42
So I wonder
4:43
how how do you think about balancing,
4:46
building as a company versus
4:48
buying innovation,
4:50
especially when you're trying to move fast in
4:52
in what is such a highly regulated industry?
4:55
On the venture side,
4:57
we are not a passive
4:59
investor, Jacob.
5:01
We take a very active role as an
5:03
investor.
5:05
What I mean by that is
5:07
we
5:08
we invest in companies,
5:11
by and large,
5:12
the companies that we want to use
5:15
within the CVS health ecosystem.
5:18
So,
5:19
70
5:20
so I think 75%
5:22
of all CVS ventures companies
5:26
have commercial agreements
5:28
with, with serious health entities.
5:31
And we also participate very actively,
5:36
into the companies that we invested in in
5:38
terms of roadmap development, prioritization,
5:42
and exploring jointly,
5:44
what what the art of the possible.
5:47
So
5:48
when you ask me, what how do we
5:51
decide
5:52
when to
5:54
when to,
5:55
build internally,
5:56
when to
5:58
go to an external company? The approach we've
6:00
been taking is
6:02
we build internally
6:04
anything that's highly value added, differentiating,
6:08
and unique
6:10
to us
6:11
and helps us get to our customer experience
6:14
goals and our operational efficiency goals.
6:17
That's things that are unique to us,
6:19
differentiating to us, we build internally.
6:23
If we see,
6:25
things that,
6:27
that there are gaps that we need to
6:29
fill and
6:30
a startup can fill that gap quickly,
6:33
we go there. We go invest with them,
6:36
and we integrate with them.
6:38
And we actually help them get better, in
6:40
in in their product road map.
6:44
So it's a it's it's kind of a
6:46
spectrum of things
6:47
on on things we build internally
6:50
and things we build with
6:53
the, startups we invest in. We are also
6:56
I we we talked about this at the
6:58
investor
6:59
day.
7:00
We are well underway
7:02
into becoming
7:04
a technology
7:06
products and services provider
7:08
to the rest of the health care industry.
7:10
So
7:12
now we are not only building technology products
7:15
for internal use,
7:17
we are also building them and productizing them,
7:21
that that the rest of the industry can
7:23
adopt as well.
7:25
And that's a really fascinating business strategy, Tilak,
7:28
that you're you're pivoting towards becoming,
7:31
like you said, a provider of tech to
7:33
other health care companies, tech services. And, you
7:37
know, CVS overall as as an organization, of
7:39
course, you sit at such a unique intersection
7:42
of of an insurer, a PBM, retail pharmacy,
7:45
primary care.
7:47
And we've been hearing for decades now about
7:49
the promise of interoperability,
7:51
and I think that goes along with this
7:53
conversation of what you were just talking about.
7:55
So I wonder,
7:56
why do you think that patients or providers
7:58
on the ground should believe
8:00
that interoperability
8:01
is finally working now.
8:04
I think
8:05
so. Hey, Jacob.
8:07
I I I share some of the pessimism
8:10
from the past
8:12
on interoperability,
8:15
having learned that in the last three years,
8:16
some of the challenges.
8:18
But I'm actually very optimistic.
8:20
I think this is the time
8:23
for that interoperability,
8:25
challenges to be resolved.
8:27
The reason I feel quite optimistic is the
8:30
following.
8:31
One,
8:32
I think, the administration,
8:35
CMS,
8:37
is very focused on addressing interoperability
8:40
challenges.
8:41
Second,
8:43
the,
8:45
AI transformation.
8:47
Look. AI has incredible potential, and I think
8:50
it's a leapfrog technology that health care has
8:53
been waiting for.
8:55
But
8:56
AI on its own
8:58
would not be able to reimagine or transform
9:00
health care.
9:02
AI, for us to realize, for this industry
9:05
to realize the full potential of AI,
9:07
it needs to be AI plus interoperability.
9:11
And I think, that
9:14
understanding
9:15
is now clear,
9:18
across the industry. So I think there's momentum
9:21
behind that.
9:23
The,
9:24
another reason I'm optimistic about interoperability is technology
9:28
advanced quite well. Right?
9:31
So,
9:33
not just the AI part of the technology,
9:35
the communications technology, the,
9:38
the the the digital technology advances
9:42
now make
9:43
electronic transfer of,
9:46
records, API based
9:48
access,
9:49
tokenization.
9:51
All of those things are now a lot
9:52
easier to do. So the hurdles that used
9:55
to remain
9:56
in the path of interoperability
9:59
from a technology perspective are a lot less.
10:02
So I'm I am, I am bullish about
10:05
interoperability.
10:07
I do think,
10:08
there are certain,
10:10
certain decisions need to be made. I think
10:14
there is a lot of push towards
10:16
interoperability
10:18
on the
10:19
provider side.
10:21
So the provider's
10:22
getting
10:23
the data they need.
10:25
There is a lot of push on the
10:27
side of,
10:29
the consumer,
10:30
consumers having access
10:32
to the data that they need and they
10:34
desire to have.
10:35
I think similar push needs to happen
10:39
on the payer side.
10:41
I think payers
10:42
having access to,
10:45
the full health care record
10:48
would be incredibly helpful
10:50
for payers to,
10:52
support their members
10:54
in a much more consumer centric way
10:57
than has been possible in the past.
11:01
Sure. No. That makes a lot of sense,
11:02
and I I think that's a good counter
11:04
to maybe some of the pessimism that you
11:05
mentioned around interoperability
11:07
that we've seen over
11:09
decades now.
11:11
But interesting to hear you say that this
11:13
this intersection of,
11:14
government focus on its on the emergence of
11:17
of better AI tools,
11:19
and then some of the barriers that are
11:20
coming down as tech advances all working together,
11:23
to make
11:24
this finally possible.
11:26
And I I wanna stay on the I
11:27
AI conversation, Talak, because,
11:30
as you know, we've seen a lot of
11:31
big announcements already this year with some of
11:33
the largest companies in this space rolling out
11:35
new health care features for consumers.
11:38
And so as somebody who's leading CVS's AI
11:41
strategy across across pharmacy, PBM, care delivery,
11:46
how do you think that more consumer AI
11:48
entering
11:49
health care is changing
11:52
your technology road map. And any any broad
11:54
thoughts on these announcements?
11:57
Yeah. So
11:59
I
12:01
AI
12:02
AI can do a lot of things really
12:04
well, Jacob.
12:05
There is no doubt about it. And I
12:08
think as an augmentative technology,
12:12
AI is already,
12:14
really transforming
12:15
healthcare.
12:17
And the clinical AI is progressing quite well.
12:21
There is still a lot of ground to
12:23
cover,
12:24
in terms
12:25
of triage,
12:27
accuracy,
12:28
and the ability to guide care, etcetera,
12:32
and augmenting the human physician.
12:35
I think I think that's that's the direction
12:37
things are gonna go and and things are
12:39
progressing well.
12:41
But there is there is room to room
12:43
to run still.
12:45
On the services AI side,
12:48
whether it's in the call center experiences or
12:51
care management experiences,
12:53
AI is really, really
12:55
helping consumers
12:57
navigate care
12:59
and becoming a concierge
13:02
for for consumers. And that's the underlying premise
13:05
behind
13:06
our,
13:07
the open engagement platform we announced at our
13:10
investor day in December.
13:12
But I wanna I wanna come come to
13:15
the the very important question you asked.
13:19
Look. AI is a technology,
13:21
and it could do a lot of things.
13:23
But, really,
13:25
a company's ability
13:26
to reimagine health care
13:29
doesn't depend on AI.
13:32
It depends on trust.
13:35
The companies
13:36
that held a consumer trust
13:39
and consumer engagement
13:43
with trust,
13:44
those are the companies
13:46
that will be able to,
13:48
reimagine health care.
13:50
And
13:51
you asked what impact does it have on
13:53
my on our CVS Health technology road map.
13:57
The good thing is we had a head
13:59
start.
14:00
We were
14:01
actively developing with AI
14:04
well before ChargeGPT
14:06
made AI a mainstream topic.
14:09
So we feel very confident with where we
14:12
are
14:13
with the, with using AI in improving both
14:16
on the services side as well as on
14:19
the clinical side.
14:21
But we also started out with extremely
14:24
well defined principles of
14:26
we will
14:27
never compromise on human touch.
14:29
We will never
14:31
allow,
14:32
AI to get in the in in in
14:34
the middle of
14:35
providing care to to our consumers and allowing
14:40
consumers to have access to care.
14:42
The the the principles are very important to
14:44
us, and we structured our AI program around
14:46
those principles.
14:49
But we have a great advantage. We have
14:51
the consumer trust
14:53
that people trust CVS. People come to CVS,
14:57
185,000,000
14:58
folks engage with CVS every year.
15:01
And I think that's what gives us the
15:03
leg up.
15:05
Amongst all these announcements you hear,
15:08
we have the same type the same or
15:10
even more advanced technologies.
15:12
But in addition, we have the consumer trust.
15:16
Absolutely. I think what you just said overall
15:18
is such an important point, Tala, for for
15:20
all of our listeners. And and and you're
15:22
right. CBS is such a trusted brand,
15:26
for for people. And as you continue to
15:28
double down on that customer experience overall,
15:32
that that trust in AI is going to
15:34
be so critical. And I like I said,
15:35
I think that's such an important message,
15:37
for all of the organizations listening in
15:39
as
15:43
you you mentioned the consumer engagement platform that
15:46
you announced
15:47
at your at your last investor day. Can
15:49
you fill our listeners in a little bit
15:51
about that,
15:52
what that is, and and why is it
15:54
important overall for the company and then, of
15:56
course, for for your customers?
15:59
Yeah. I'll,
16:01
I'll go through that in a quick detail,
16:03
and, happy to answer any questions you have
16:05
on that, Jacob.
16:08
We
16:09
believe consumer engagement in health care is the
16:11
holy grail.
16:13
If we get consumers to engage in their
16:15
health care
16:16
frequently, consistently, constantly,
16:19
that will lead to trust.
16:21
Trust leads to behavior change. And behavior change
16:24
by far has been shown to be
16:27
the best predictor of healthcare outcomes.
16:30
So we got into this wanting to how
16:33
do we
16:34
how do we inspire
16:36
much stronger engagement in health care by the
16:39
consumers?
16:40
And
16:42
we offer as part of the and and
16:44
we also
16:46
were very clear right at the beginning,
16:48
this needs to be an open platform.
16:50
So the platform
16:52
needs to be able to connect to any
16:54
payer, any provider,
16:57
any PBM,
16:59
and any pharmacy
17:01
because those are all the health care stakeholders
17:04
that a consumer touches.
17:06
So we wanted to create a consumer centric
17:09
platform. It's for the consumer.
17:12
It's driven by the consumer preferences
17:14
and and needs. So So it's for the
17:17
consumer's health
17:18
end to
17:19
end, and, hence, it's completely open. So whichever,
17:23
health care,
17:25
stakeholder the consumer is interacting with, that stakeholder
17:28
can integrate into this platform
17:30
to provide
17:31
a consumer
17:32
oriented
17:33
end to end
17:34
completely connected experience
17:36
for health care to that consumer in the
17:39
platform.
17:40
And the platform offers three services.
17:43
I think that's that's why for the,
17:46
for for potential stakeholders,
17:49
the way to think about it is it
17:50
offers three services.
17:52
One is
17:53
pharmacy as a service.
17:56
So
17:57
we are packaging
17:58
the,
18:00
pharmacy technologies that we have developed, which we
18:03
believe are world class.
18:05
And,
18:06
any pharmacy in the country can use
18:09
the,
18:10
these pharmacy technologies and be a much better
18:13
pharmacy, quite frankly.
18:16
Second service is called engagement as service.
18:19
This is where,
18:20
we
18:21
allow the stakeholders to have direct relationship with
18:24
the consumers
18:25
to help consumers to get the most out
18:28
of their healthcare.
18:30
And third,
18:31
is, insights as a service. So,
18:35
based on the consumer engagement,
18:38
are there things
18:39
that our consumers want,
18:42
that we can learn from them and make
18:44
our products better,
18:46
and many other types of insights?
18:48
So that's why we think the stakeholders would
18:51
be very interested in joining this platform in
18:53
addition to wanting to provide
18:55
a great consumer experience.
18:57
On the consumer side,
18:59
the value proposition is incredibly compelling.
19:03
We basically
19:05
want to do all the homework, the healthcare
19:07
homework, which is incredibly frustrating to consumers.
19:10
We wanna do it for them so they
19:12
can focus on their health.
19:14
We want
19:17
a essentially, a health concierge in the pocket
19:20
of our consumers,
19:21
helping them, informing them,
19:24
supporting them, and and,
19:26
and and,
19:28
taking out the stress that is prevalent
19:31
in health care today for the consumer.
19:34
And and now we want consumers to own
19:37
their health and their health care.
19:40
They want to we want them to own
19:42
their own decisions on health care by being
19:45
better informed.
19:47
And so the consumer,
19:49
value proposition is incredibly,
19:51
powerful,
19:52
especially because
19:54
it's an open platform and it integrates all
19:57
stakeholders
19:58
that the consumer touches,
20:00
well outside of the CVS Health ecosystem itself.
20:04
So we are very bullish about it. We
20:06
are well underway, and more and more details
20:09
would come
20:10
as the, as we go through the year.
20:13
Understood. It's exciting times clearly to lock into
20:16
your point earlier.
20:18
Now is the time from a variety of
20:20
factors for interoperability
20:22
to become,
20:23
tangible, and and CVS is clearly leading the
20:26
forefront there. So appreciate you sharing details around
20:29
that new platform with us, and with our
20:31
listeners.
20:33
In that vein, Tlac, what else are we
20:34
missing for everybody listening in right now? You've
20:37
got the ears of a lot of other
20:39
health care leaders from all over the country
20:41
as we speak.
20:43
What do you wanna share with them? Any
20:44
wrap up thoughts or or final bits of
20:46
advice?
20:47
I'll, I'll you know, coming from our set
20:50
of health care,
20:52
Jacob,
20:53
I I do wanna make one pitch to
20:56
the entire health care industry.
20:58
And I say this as me,
21:01
a consumer of healthcare,
21:03
not as a CVS Health executive.
21:05
So it's just me saying,
21:08
stop fighting with each other and help me.
21:12
It's not
21:13
it's pointless
21:15
for
21:16
the different stakeholders,
21:18
pharmaceutical
21:19
companies, PBMs,
21:20
pharmacies,
21:21
payers,
21:22
providers.
21:24
You all every one of you
21:27
play an incredibly important role
21:30
in an incredibly important function, health care, in
21:33
this country.
21:35
I would
21:36
like to see a world where each of
21:38
the health care stakeholders
21:41
actually work together,
21:44
together in combination with the administration.
21:47
Start up companies
21:49
and
21:50
incumbents, large incumbents that are willing to transform
21:53
and wanting to transform health care like CUS
21:56
Health,
21:57
working together.
21:59
All of us working together
22:02
to make the consumer's
22:05
health care
22:06
and health outcomes better. That's what
22:09
American people want, and that's what, as an
22:12
industry, we need to deliver.
22:14
And the only way to deliver
22:16
is
22:17
for us to collaborate,
22:19
not
22:20
fight.
22:21
That's that's the that's my thoughts as a
22:24
consumer of health care.
22:25
The wise message, and I appreciate you sharing
22:28
that with us, Talak. And and, overall, appreciate
22:31
you being here,
22:33
with us, giving us your insights, and and
22:35
telling us a little bit about all the
22:37
important work happening under your leadership and with
22:40
your teams at CVS Health. We we really
22:42
appreciate you taking the time.
22:44
Thank you, Jacob. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.
22:47
And to our listeners, if you'd like to
22:48
listen to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare, you
22:51
can visit beckershospitalreview.com.