Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Samuel Wollner, Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships, EmblemHealth

Transcript

Samuel Wollner, Vice President, Strategy and Partnerships, EmblemHealth · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Evernorth brings the power of wonder and relentless
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  innovation to create world class pharmacy, care, and
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  benefit solutions.
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  Barriers to care can lead to gaps in
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  care, which can drive up the total cost
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  of care. Our capabilities work seamlessly together to
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  create innovative pharmacy care and benefit solutions for
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  today and tomorrow.
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  Our connected health services make the treatment, prediction,
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  and prevention of health care's most complex conditions
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  easier and more accessible as we drive organizations
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  and people forward.
• 0:28
  Hello and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
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  My name is Chanel Banger recording live at
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  the Becker's third annual Spring Payer Issues Roundtable
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  and sitting down with Samuel Wollner, the Vice
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  President of Strategy and Partnerships at EmblemHealth.
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  Sam, thank you so much for joining me
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  today. Thanks for having me, Chanel. Perfect. While
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  we get started, could you please introduce yourself
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  and share a bit about your organization?
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  Sure. So my name is Sam Wollner. I'm
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  the vice president of strategy and partnerships at
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  EmblemHealth.
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  EmblemHealth is a not for profit health plan
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  headquartered in Manhattan in New York City.
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  We have, been in existence since the nineteen
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  thirties in the, height of the Great Depression
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  when we were founded by mayor Fiorello LaGuardia,
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  who some may be familiar with from the
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  airport in New York City.
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  We were founded with the mission of serving
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  hardworking New Yorkers and keeping them from financial
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  misfortune in the event of accident or illness.
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  And, we're still on that mission today. We've
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  expanded it a bit. We own a physician
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  group. But overall, we're,
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  $6,000,000,000
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  in top line revenue.
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  We have about 2,000,000 members.
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  We're in all lines of business, and so
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  about one in four New Yorkers actually receives
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  their insurance,
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  through EmblemHealth.
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  And, our physician group, Advantage Care Physicians, sees
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  roughly a half a million patients,
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  for primary and specialty care every year.
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  So we're a a highly New York focused
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  organization.
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  We like to think of ourselves as being
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  not just in the community, but of the
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  community, and I'm no exception. I'm a born
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  and raised New Yorker. I've been with EmblemHealth
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  for four years. I lead, strategic planning,
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  corporate partnerships,
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  and a, a small group that focuses on,
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  organizational alignment around strategic initiatives that we call
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  strategy implementation.
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  Got it. Thank you so much for that
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  introduction. Now moving forward into the meat of
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  the podcast, addressing health equity has become a
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  critical focus
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  for many health plans.
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  Can you share an overview of a key
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  initiative here that you're involved in or particularly
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  excited about, and what are you hoping to
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  achieve?
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  Great.
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  Happy to. So we're a we're a nonprofit
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  health plan. As I mentioned before. Our commitment
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  is to our neighbors, and not to shareholders.
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  And so health equity is one way we
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  honor that commitment.
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  We have established a an executive role in
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  the company, the chief health equity officer. His
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  name is Abdu Ba.
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  So that's our first initiative is establishing leadership
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  around a commitment to health equity. The second
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  thing I would mention is that we are
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  the only health, plan in New York State
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  who is who has received or earned an
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  NCQA
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  health equity accreditation,
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  and that involves
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  ensuring that we're collecting
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  demographic data about all of our members,
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  reporting on it, and making health equity part
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  of our organization. So we're we're honored to
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  be, accredited by NCQA for that. The third
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  part I would mention is that,
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  we have a a neighborhood
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  level approach to to health equity. We have,
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  30 locations
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  that, that are physician group advantage care physicians
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  delivers
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  primary and specialty care at. And at many
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  of those locations, we collocate,
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  what we call EmblemHealth Neighborhood Care, which is
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  staffed by,
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  customer service folks that are really care navigators,
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  that are able to
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  point, both our members and community members, more
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  broadly speaking, connecting them to community resources,
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  classes on nutrition,
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  well-being,
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  and some exercise classes.
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  Perfect. Well, moving forward, net promoter score is
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  a powerful indicator of members' loyalty and satisfaction.
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  How are you using NPS
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  to drive meaningful improvements across your health plan?
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  We look at NPS,
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  regularly. Our our marketing team does a wonderful
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  job of serving
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  all of our stakeholders,
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  for NPS scores. So not just our members,
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  but also,
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  the broker community as well as the provider
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  community, all folks that we consider to be
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  key stakeholders to our business and to our
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  community.
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  It's also embedded in our corporate incentive structure,
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  so we're all, incentivized to be focused on
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  it. And,
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  finally, we use it when we review it,
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  we we use it through to adjust our
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  products. For example, we identified that,
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  our dental solution was a pain pain point
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  across many of our products and especially in
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  the government programs business. So we're in the
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  process of, enhancing that solution.
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  So everyone's talking about how there's an imperative
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  to reduce costs, improve quality,
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  and advance health equity, none of which are
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  small tasks. How do you approach aligning these
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  priorities in your organization's strategic vision?
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  Well, to begin with, we have a very
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  structured strategic planning process.
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  We work on setting objectives with measurable key
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  results,
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  and checking in on those quarterly and adjusting
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  them as needed.
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  But beyond kind of establishing the what we
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  wanna achieve and aligning all those priorities, we're
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  really focused,
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  on building great teams,
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  and having a cohesive leadership team work together
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  because inevitably priorities,
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  adjust,
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  and you need to pivot. And it's incredibly
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  important to have a cohesive team that works
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  well together because then pivoting becomes, much more
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  manageable.
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  Absolutely. Well, Well, Sam, I wanna thank you
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  for your time today. But before I let
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  you go, I have one more question. Looking
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  ahead, what do you see as the biggest
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  opportunity for payers to lead the charge in
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  transforming care delivery and driving better outcomes for
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  all stakeholders? And how can leaders take a
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  step in this direction now?
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  Yeah. So what I would say is that
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  health care to date has become largely
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  a game of scale, and so the
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  the winners and losers of this of the
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  health care landscape have been determined by how
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  large they've become. You might think about it
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  as a battle of sumo wrestlers.
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  We are
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  thinking that the the next wave of health
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  insurer and how we wanna win in the
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  market
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  is by being a care delivery partner and
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  and an advocate for our stakeholders.
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  So to be a true advocate for your
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  stakeholder, you need to be,
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  understanding of that stakeholder in in the community.
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  So we no longer wanna differentiate purely on
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  scale. We wanna differentiate
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  based off of our community presence. So building
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  off of things like AdvantageCare Physicians and EmblemHealth
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  Neighborhood Care,
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  having a a provider networking team that doesn't
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  just do contract negotiations, but is also there
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  to form
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  meaningful relationships with the providers in our communities.
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  So that's how I see us making the
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  biggest impact moving into the future.
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  Absolutely. Well, Sam, I wanna thank you once
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  again for your time today and for joining
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  me on the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
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  Thank you so much, Janelle.