Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Ty Wang, Co-Founder and CEO of Angle Health
Transcript
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- 0:47Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare podcast.
- 0:49Today, I'm featuring Tai Wang, cofounder and CEO
- 0:52of Angle Health. Tai, welcome to the podcast.
- 0:56Thank you for having me here.
- 0:58Can you please tell us a little bit
- 0:59about yourself and your organization?
- 1:01Yeah. So I'm the cofounder and CEO of
- 1:03Angle Health. My background,
- 1:05primarily from a tech and engineering background. So,
- 1:08before starting Angle Health, my cofounder and I,
- 1:10we both, led teams at Palantir across
- 1:14many industries. But, if you're familiar with the
- 1:16organization, health care is one of Palantir's biggest
- 1:18verticals. So
- 1:19before that, both of us have engineering backgrounds
- 1:22as well. Angle Health is an AI driven
- 1:26health care organization
- 1:28where we offer
- 1:30fully customizable
- 1:32health plans,
- 1:33primarily level funded
- 1:35for small and medium sized businesses.
- 1:38So from improving member experience and expanding value
- 1:41based care to controlling costs, payer executives have
- 1:44ambitious growth goals for the rest of 2024
- 1:47and the year ahead. In your role, what's
- 1:49your top priority, and how are you planning
- 1:51to get there?
- 1:52Yeah. Many of our top priorities obviously, growth
- 1:56is is always a priority as you mentioned.
- 1:58And and we've been growing massively
- 2:013 to 5 x year over year over
- 2:03the past couple years since we launched here.
- 2:05And we wanna continue that trend, but really
- 2:08focusing in on,
- 2:10I think, now a lot of the strategies
- 2:12that really get the members and the patients
- 2:15the care that they need when they need
- 2:16it to to really help improve the health
- 2:18outcomes and and and control the costs when
- 2:21it comes
- 2:23to when it comes to these members and
- 2:24when it comes to their access to care.
- 2:26And I think one thing that we found
- 2:28a lot of in in this journey is
- 2:30that and it I think it's something that's
- 2:32fairly obvious is that a lot of members
- 2:35during their care journeys, they
- 2:37are really looking for
- 2:39help in navigating the health care system.
- 2:41And
- 2:42the even having a primary care provider or
- 2:45having an oncologist, if they're facing, like, a
- 2:48series of treatments for cancer or anything like
- 2:50that. There's they're very lost after leaving the
- 2:53doctor's office. So one of the big initiatives
- 2:56that we really focus on,
- 2:58and that that we really
- 3:00have been investing in is is providing that
- 3:02level of
- 3:04high touch experience
- 3:05for
- 3:06all of our members, but especially for those
- 3:08that are that are in these kind of
- 3:10complex
- 3:11situations or have these chronic diseases that really
- 3:15need and and and want some support in
- 3:17that.
- 3:18So at an industry level, how would you
- 3:20describe the biggest barriers to effectively serving and
- 3:23engaging members?
- 3:24And, what opportunities do you see for large
- 3:27scale improvements, and how are you applying this
- 3:29in your current strategies?
- 3:32Yeah. I think one of the biggest barriers
- 3:34when it comes to
- 3:35effectively engaging and serving members
- 3:38is the methods to engage them. And, really,
- 3:42I think I think this is this is
- 3:43true across the board is really identifying
- 3:46today, we know that there's been this explosion
- 3:49of new ways of receiving medical services, especially
- 3:51when it comes to things like digital health
- 3:53programs, chronic disease management programs, behavioral health programs,
- 3:56things like that. But they're not effective for
- 3:58everyone. These programs are effective for the right
- 4:02profile of members and patients, but not for
- 4:05but not necessarily for everyone in identifying
- 4:07who these profile of patients are and being
- 4:09able to engage them and direct them to
- 4:12to these programs, educate them, and incentivize them
- 4:15to leverage them
- 4:16is, I think, one of the biggest challenges.
- 4:18And for us, we we're a technology first
- 4:21company. We have AI and machine learning really
- 4:23driving everything, that we do across our health
- 4:26plan operations
- 4:28and being able to take take the data
- 4:30and and and surface these insights, be able
- 4:33to match members and patients to these programs
- 4:36is is something that we've that we've been
- 4:38investing in that and that will continue to
- 4:39do and and is very core to our
- 4:42strategy today.
- 4:43So keeping pace in today's dynamic health care
- 4:46landscape is challenging to say the least. What's
- 4:48one piece of advice you'd like to share
- 4:50with peer leaders to grow their businesses, while
- 4:52keeping members top of mind? Yeah. I think
- 4:55what you mentioned there, keeping members top of
- 4:56mind, I think
- 4:58that is extremely important, something that for us
- 5:01at Angle Health
- 5:02is a question that we ask ourselves every
- 5:05day and and with every decision that we
- 5:06make. We are a very member focused company.
- 5:09Is this initiative? Is this product?
- 5:12Is this in the member's best interest? And
- 5:14that really drives
- 5:16is is at the core of of everything
- 5:17we do and and and drives
- 5:20a lot of our decision making at Angle
- 5:21Health. And I think
- 5:23today, there's all of these new innovative, creative,
- 5:27whether it's cost structures or financing structures or
- 5:30types of insurance products.
- 5:33But I think it's sometimes easy to get
- 5:35lost in that. But but, really, I think
- 5:38focusing on and and and going back to
- 5:40centering yourself on on kind of that question
- 5:42of is is this really in the member's
- 5:45best interest?
- 5:46So how is technology supporting value based care
- 5:49or member focused initiatives at your organization? And
- 5:52kinda what what are you most excited about
- 5:53when it comes to technology in your organization?
- 5:56Yeah. The what we're most excited about is
- 5:59being able to really capitalize on kind of
- 6:02this new acceleration
- 6:05in technology and in AI where I think
- 6:08we're entering
- 6:09really a new era of what technology is
- 6:12capable of. And for us, we rebuilt
- 6:16really this whole kind of health plan stack
- 6:18or infrastructure from the ground up. We have
- 6:20very integrated data,
- 6:21very connected data infrastructure that enables us to
- 6:24leverage tools like AI and machine learning across
- 6:26the board and and and and really kind
- 6:28of take advantage of of these new advancements
- 6:31in technologies in a very responsible way to
- 6:34unlock both,
- 6:35operational efficiencies. So being able to operate at
- 6:38the scale that we are today with tens
- 6:40of thousands of members
- 6:42with a very lean team while also
- 6:45being able to drive the the insights and
- 6:47the engagement needed for true kind of high
- 6:51touch experience and and preventative care.
- 6:54Perfect. Well, Ty, thank you so much for
- 6:56joining us on the show today. But before
- 6:57I let you go, is there anything else
- 6:59you'd like to leave for our listeners?
- 7:01Yeah. I I think, the the
- 7:03just really reiterating what I mentioned before
- 7:07where there's a lot of hype around a
- 7:09lot of a lot of new creative
- 7:11products and and technologies as well. But, really,
- 7:14I think for the benefit of
- 7:17of our industry, of of the people of
- 7:20of this country and the health care system,
- 7:21it's really about
- 7:23getting back to
- 7:24that individual
- 7:26and and thinking about
- 7:28what is best for the individual
- 7:30and and how can we enable them
- 7:33to make the best choice for themselves as
- 7:35possible. Perfect. Well, Ty, thank you again for
- 7:38joining us today at the Becker's Health Care
- 7:39Podcast, and have a great rest of your
- 7:40day. Appreciate it. Thank you.