Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Dr. Romilla Batra, SVP and Chief Medical Officer at Premera Blue Cross

Transcript

Dr. Romilla Batra, SVP and Chief Medical Officer at Premera Blue Cross · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the
• 0:02
  Becker's Pay Your Issues podcast.
• 0:04
  Thrilled today to be joined by doctor Rama
• 0:06
  Labatra, who is senior vice president and chief
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  medical officer at Premera Blue Cross. Doctor Batra,
• 0:12
  thank you so much for taking the time
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  to be with me on the podcast today.
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  Thanks for having me. So before we dive
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  into everything we wanna talk with you about,
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  can you tell us a little bit more
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  about yourself, your background in health care, and
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  what it is that you do today at
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  Premera?
• 0:27
  Absolutely.
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  I am a primary care physician internist by
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  background. I would say I spent the first
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  ten years of my professional life working in
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  academic centers and federally qualified healthcare,
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  centers. And, for the past, over a decade,
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  I've been working on the health plan side,
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  mostly in not for profit health plans. I
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  joined Premera about a year back, in my
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  role as a chief medical officer. I'm responsible,
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  for,
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  developing, I would say, clinical strategies and programs
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  that improve the health care outcomes and experience
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  in our populations, and I would say all
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  our populations,
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  with a focus on, what I would consider
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  quintupil a.
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  Fantastic. Well, let's talk a little bit about
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  that.
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  Obviously, you're you're Premera's new chief medical officer.
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  So talk to us a little bit about
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  how you're rethinking the health plan's approach to
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  improving clinical outcomes,
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  while also addressing the patient experience and provider
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  satisfaction.
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  And can you share with us any innovative
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  strategies that you're implementing to align with that
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  quintuple aim?
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  You know, I would start off by saying
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  when we think about health care now in
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  this country, it's it's first and foremost on
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  everybody's mind just because the health care costs
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  are so up.
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  I'm also sure people already know when you
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  think about bankruptcies, medical reasons are the biggest
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  reasons for bankruptcies. So affordability and access becomes
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  that much bigger.
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  So when we think about at Premera, when
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  we think about how do we serve our
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  populations
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  best by and so especially focus on improving,
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  quintuple on on quintuple aims and outcomes,
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  We really focused on what matters to our
• 2:01
  populations,
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  what are the drivers of poor health in
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  those populations,
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  how can we engage in our population alongside
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  a delivery system,
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  and really help them get to live their
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  best life.
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  And so that is also actually our our
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  purpose and our vision and our mission statement,
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  which is how do we really make health
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  care work better for our members.
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  And so that's the focus
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  of our programs, and it's all,
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  I would say it's driven by not only
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  member needs, but it's also driven by data.
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  What is our data telling us?
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  And, really quickly, you know, all of us
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  came on the other end of the pandemic.
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  A lot of care
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  was missed during the pandemic. And so as
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  more people are engaging with care, our role
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  at Premera is making sure people are reengaging
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  with preventive care and also making sure, you
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  know, access is available to our members at
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  the right place and the right cost at
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  the right time, and I say every time.
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  So those are our big,
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  areas of focus, at Premera.
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  Certainly. And I know we've talked with Premera
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  leaders in the past about how affordability
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  and equitable access to care is a key
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  challenge within today's health care landscape, and certainly
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  that that's something that your leaders are always
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  looking to tackle.
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  So can you talk to us about how
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  you're working to support providers in delivering that
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  high quality care while also ensuring financial sustainability
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  for the health plan?
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  Yeah. So I, I, always step in two
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  shoes. I think about members first, and I
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  would say providers second. I'm a primary care
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  physician myself, so I know how it is
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  to take care of, you know, patients in
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  the clinic,
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  day after day. So with that lens in
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  mind, we always think about how do we
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  make the right thing to do, easy thing
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  to do for our providers.
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  And for for us, what it means is
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  how do we get to data, data that's
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  real and actionable and timely to our providers
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  so they can really do the right thing.
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  So perhaps we have more care gaps that
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  providers may not know because members sometimes switch
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  providers, like who needs a mammogram and who
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  hasn't had a colon cancer screening. That's a
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  good example.
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  Similarly,
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  you know, we have programs and people get
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  discharged from the hospital to connect them back
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  to their primary care physician because sometimes primary
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  care physician are not even, you know, aware
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  that people are in the hospital. So how
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  do we get to do the right thing
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  for our members and right thing for our
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  providers? So how do we really support providers?
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  That's another example.
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  The third example I would say is,
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  at a systems level,
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  how do we make it easy and take
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  away the administrative
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  burden that a lot of primary care physicians
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  and physicians in general face? So constantly looking
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  at our systems and exchanging data, getting data
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  from them,
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  making sure that if we have, you know,
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  if we are assessing for medical necessity, that
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  that is timely, done real time. So no
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  care is delayed or hampered.
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  And last but not the least, rewarding for
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  good quality care. So we have a lot
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  of, value based care programs
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  where where we incentivize our providers for, doing
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  the right thing and more so so they
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  can set up systems in place to help
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  our members.
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  Certainly.
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  So let's switch gears here for a second
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  and talk a little bit about health equity,
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  which, of course, remains a critical priority for
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  health care organizations
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  nationally, including at Premera.
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  How would you say that you're aligning the
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  health plan strategy to advance health equity efforts
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  across the communities that you serve? And can
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  you share any partnerships or new initiatives,
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  that you think are really proven effective in
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  driving these efforts?
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  Absolutely. I think we absolutely believe in, what
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  I'm saying. Excellent health outcomes for all, but
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  that is,
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  Medicare. But that is a framework Medicare has
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  adopted, and we totally believe in it. And
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  for us, being a not for profit plan,
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  it's based not only on our membership, it's
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  also based on healthy communities as well. So
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  with that in mind, we spent the last
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  few years really partnering very closely with community
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  based organizations,
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  academic medical centers,
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  in providing grants, providing data,
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  creating and launching programs to address the needs
• 6:00
  of local population in some areas.
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  It's around focus on hypertension in our black
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  population. Other areas, it's, focused on serving the
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  behavioral health needs of a population when we
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  don't have that many behavioral health specialists. So
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  giving grants around with University of Washington on
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  collaborative care. And in some communities, it's around
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  maternity care. So there are different areas that
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  we focus on based on the needs of
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  the population as, you know, many of our,
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  many in our audience know that, social drivers
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  of health are super important and, you know,
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  what your health outcomes depend on where you
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  live, work, and play. So that's where we
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  are aligning ourselves to in terms of supporting
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  the health. I I'm calling it excellent health
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  outcomes for all.
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  Absolutely. Well, it sounds like a lot of
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  really impactful work happening under your leadership.
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  But before we go, any other final thoughts
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  or final tidbits of advice you wanna offer,
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  while you have the ears of a lot
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  of other health plan leaders from around the
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  country?
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  I think all of us across the country
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  are struggling with the rising cost we see
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  in our personal lives, and, of course, it
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  spills over in the health care life as
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  well.
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  And, all of us are looking at affordability
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  strategies.
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  What I drive my teams to do and
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  I would ask other health care leaders to
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  do is, how do we make the right
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  thing to do also the business excellent thing
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  to do? And so looking at tactics that
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  may help our members first and also help
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  from driving the cost of care down and
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  making it more affordable.
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  Few things that jumped to my mind is,
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  you know, pharmacy drugs are big drivers. If
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  they're generics or biosimilars, could we do that?
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  Similarly, I always tell my teams, hey. Nobody
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  wants to show up in the ER or
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  in the hospital unless they have to. Can
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  we bring care to them? So just doing
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  the right thing but also making sure the
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  right thing also drives cost effectiveness and affordability.
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  Wonderful. Well, doctor Batra, thank you so much
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  for taking the time to sit down with
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  us and for sharing your insights with our
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  listeners. We really appreciate it. Thanks so much
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  for having me, Jacob. And if you'd like
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  to listen to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare,
• 7:57
  you can visit beckershospitalreview.com.