Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Simplifying Healthcare and Rebuilding Trust with Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips

Transcript

Simplifying Healthcare and Rebuilding Trust with Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

• 0:01
  Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings health care
• 0:04
  leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues
• 0:06
  facing the industry.
• 0:08
  And every year, those conversations shift in profound
• 0:10
  and unexpected ways.
• 0:12
  This April, more than 3,500
• 0:15
  healthcare executives will return to Chicago
• 0:17
  for Becker's sixteenth annual meeting.
• 0:19
  Seven ninety five elite speakers will offer new
• 0:22
  lessons,
• 0:23
  new case studies, and predictions about what comes
• 0:26
  next. Join us April 13 through the sixteenth.
• 0:29
  For the agenda and event details,
• 0:31
  visit beckershospitalreview.com
• 0:33
  and click on the events tab in the
• 0:35
  upper right.
• 0:37
  Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the
• 0:40
  Becker's Healthcare podcast.
• 0:41
  Thrilled today to be joined by a special
• 0:43
  guest. Doctor Amy Compton Phillips is the executive
• 0:46
  vice president and chief medical officer at CVS
• 0:49
  Health. Doctor Compton Phillips, thank you so much
• 0:52
  for taking the time to be with me
• 0:53
  on the podcast today. What a pleasure to
• 0:56
  be here. Thank you for asking me, Jacob.
• 0:58
  Absolutely, Amy. It's a pleasure to get to
• 0:59
  speak with you. And before we dive into
• 1:01
  everything we wanna talk with you about today,
• 1:03
  can you first tell us a little bit
• 1:04
  more about yourself,
• 1:06
  your background in health care, and what it
• 1:08
  is that you do today at CVS Health?
• 1:11
  Sure.
• 1:12
  Well, I am an internist and,
• 1:15
  started out straight out of residency with Kaiser
• 1:17
  Permanente
• 1:18
  and lasted there, over two decades.
• 1:21
  Went from being a frontline doctor through a
• 1:23
  variety of roles, ending up as the chief
• 1:25
  quality officer nationally for the organization.
• 1:28
  I then moved over,
• 1:30
  to a a fee for service care delivery
• 1:34
  system, Providence Health up and down the West
• 1:36
  Coast,
• 1:37
  where I started out as chief medical officer
• 1:39
  and ended up running clinical operations,
• 1:41
  including having the first patient with COVID. So
• 1:43
  that was quite an adventure.
• 1:45
  After that, did a very brief stint, a
• 1:47
  little touch and go in consulting,
• 1:49
  being the chief physician executive with Prescchini
• 1:52
  and, went from there straight over to CVS
• 1:55
  Health where I am now delighted to be
• 1:57
  involved with helping simplify health care.
• 2:01
  Wonderful. Well, appreciate that quick overview there, Amy.
• 2:03
  And, that's where I actually wanna get started
• 2:05
  by talking a little bit about your your
• 2:07
  career,
• 2:09
  working for some of the largest health systems
• 2:11
  in the country. And that's such an interesting,
• 2:13
  anecdote that you added there, the first COVID
• 2:15
  case. I'm sure that was, a very scary
• 2:17
  experience at the time. But,
• 2:19
  you you spent over two decades at Kaiser
• 2:21
  Permanente. You led clinical operations across 51 hospitals
• 2:25
  at Providence.
• 2:26
  So,
• 2:27
  you know, given all of that experience, how
• 2:30
  did that shape how you're approaching your current
• 2:32
  role at CVS?
• 2:33
  Yeah.
• 2:35
  Directly relevant.
• 2:36
  At Kaiser Permanente,
• 2:38
  it's a unique model on American health care.
• 2:40
  It was accountable care before anybody knew what
• 2:43
  value based care was,
• 2:45
  where,
• 2:46
  the traditional way Kaiser Permanente is paid for
• 2:49
  is, an employer will pay one price, a
• 2:52
  subscription fee for health care, and then it's
• 2:54
  all you can eat. Right? The, it's like
• 2:56
  buffet
• 2:57
  that you get great outcomes that way by
• 3:00
  focusing on prevention and wellness
• 3:03
  because
• 3:03
  Kaiser Permanente and patients do better if they
• 3:06
  stay healthy well and out of the hospital.
• 3:08
  And so I really cut my teeth on
• 3:10
  a model of care where we were focused
• 3:13
  on improving health outcomes and keeping people the
• 3:15
  best health they could possibly be.
• 3:18
  When I went over to Providence Health System,
• 3:21
  and I got recruited in because,
• 3:24
  our CEO at the time really wanted to
• 3:26
  understand
• 3:27
  how KP did what KP did to be
• 3:29
  able to get the kind of quality outcomes
• 3:31
  that they
• 3:32
  did, and bring that kind of knowledge into
• 3:34
  more traditional US health care
• 3:37
  as as delivered by Providence, which is in
• 3:39
  the the way the 97%
• 3:41
  of the country gets health care. Right?
• 3:43
  And the really interesting thing at Providence
• 3:46
  was
• 3:46
  the the incentives were not necessarily
• 3:49
  aligned with the way people wanted to be
• 3:52
  receiving care.
• 3:54
  That fee for service medicine,
• 3:56
  doctors and hospitals
• 3:58
  get paid to take care of people when
• 3:59
  they get sick.
• 4:01
  And so the incentives
• 4:02
  are to do a fantastic
• 4:04
  job with really complex care when people get
• 4:06
  very sick, but there's less of a demand
• 4:09
  to focus upstream in care, which is what
• 4:12
  most people want.
• 4:13
  So while it was really a wonderful place
• 4:16
  to learn how to how do we coordinate,
• 4:19
  the highly complex specialty care people need when
• 4:22
  they really need it, it was, it didn't
• 4:25
  really scratch the itch of my my personal
• 4:28
  goal in my career, which is to make
• 4:30
  great health and compassionate care available for all.
• 4:33
  So,
• 4:35
  the opportunity at CVS is to actually go
• 4:37
  back to my roots to say, how can
• 4:40
  we leverage this incredible
• 4:42
  system that we have with 9,000
• 4:44
  retail stores
• 4:46
  with 40,000
• 4:47
  clinicians, including pharmacists and physicians and nurses,
• 4:51
  and weave together a system
• 4:54
  where we can make easy access to compassionate
• 4:58
  care with high quality and clinical integrity
• 5:01
  available for all.
• 5:03
  So that's that's the goal at CVS Health,
• 5:05
  you know, have have no small goals.
• 5:08
  Understood. Yeah. You you wanted to make a
• 5:10
  bigger impact by by moving to an organization
• 5:12
  with a bigger footprint. It makes a lot
• 5:14
  of sense. And, you know, we've talked with
• 5:16
  a lot of leaders at CVS recently, Amy,
• 5:19
  and and certainly over the years about how
• 5:21
  the company has really wanted to focus on
• 5:23
  building a more connected
• 5:25
  consumer centered health care experience across all your
• 5:28
  different assets,
• 5:29
  to your point, a a larger footprint. You
• 5:31
  have Aetna with with insurance benefits, MinuteClinic in
• 5:34
  the retail stores, Oak Street Health,
• 5:37
  the the pharmacy benefits under Caremark. So I
• 5:40
  wonder,
• 5:41
  given all of that, what what does bringing
• 5:43
  that more connected experience actually look like in
• 5:46
  practice
• 5:47
  on the ground for for all the different
• 5:49
  kinds of individuals that you serve? Ultimately, where
• 5:51
  where are you seeing this all work for
• 5:53
  people?
• 5:54
  Yeah. You know, Jacob, I wanna go back
• 5:56
  to something you just said. It's not just
• 5:58
  a bigger footprint that CVS has. It's a
• 6:01
  different footprint. It's a different set of assets.
• 6:03
  It's assets close to where people live, work,
• 6:06
  and play.
• 6:07
  And because of that, because of all those
• 6:10
  assets, having information,
• 6:12
  about about
• 6:14
  cost and outcomes and quality
• 6:17
  at the same time as clinical care, we
• 6:19
  can actually weave together an experience for consumers
• 6:23
  and patients and members
• 6:25
  that's very different. When you think about the
• 6:28
  the things that people have to deal with
• 6:30
  in health care today that are frustrating,
• 6:32
  as in I can't get in to see
• 6:34
  anybody. Well, we have MinuteClinic. We have virtual
• 6:37
  care. We have Oak Street health clinics, for
• 6:40
  people on Medicare
• 6:42
  that allow us to help solving for access
• 6:45
  in a in a different way, in a
• 6:46
  more expanded way.
• 6:48
  You can actually access care through our CVS
• 6:50
  Health app. Right?
• 6:52
  There's navigation.
• 6:54
  And the the connected tools, the digital tools
• 6:57
  can actually help with navigation saying,
• 7:00
  who's in my network?
• 7:02
  What what's their phone number? How can I
• 7:04
  see them? Do I need a referral? Oh,
• 7:05
  I did need a referral or I need
• 7:07
  a prior authorization. Here's where it is in
• 7:09
  process so I can actually
• 7:10
  see what's needed. And then so access navigation,
• 7:13
  and the third big one is payment. People
• 7:15
  hate not knowing what things cost in health
• 7:18
  care. We know how expensive it can be
• 7:20
  on and that nobody wants a surprise bill
• 7:22
  out of the blue. And so we actually
• 7:25
  have things like accumulators and estimators
• 7:27
  that actually allow people to understand what the
• 7:30
  cost is. And by weaving together that entire
• 7:33
  journey,
• 7:34
  the the ability to get access, the ability
• 7:37
  to navigate care, and the ability to understand
• 7:39
  cost,
• 7:40
  we think that we're creating a much more
• 7:42
  integrated
• 7:43
  ecosystem that helps really simplify the entire journey
• 7:46
  for something that nobody wants to have to
• 7:48
  do, but we all do at some point
• 7:50
  have to do, which is navigate the health
• 7:52
  care system.
• 7:53
  Absolutely. And it's so clear that there's so
• 7:56
  many amazing tools right now out there for
• 7:59
  consumers to take advantage of even just from
• 8:01
  the cost perspective, Amy, to to to know
• 8:04
  what the final cost might be,
• 8:06
  at at the pharmacy counter. And and so
• 8:08
  I I wonder how do you balance that,
• 8:11
  all the amazing innovations that have been made
• 8:13
  at at even just a single company like
• 8:15
  CVS,
• 8:16
  with the reality on the ground of what
• 8:18
  we of what we, and and I'm sure
• 8:20
  you are hearing
• 8:21
  from from patients about the health care system
• 8:23
  more broadly, and, of course, in insurers specifically
• 8:26
  as well about the low trust that a
• 8:29
  lot of the public has right now in
• 8:31
  the health care system. I know, you know,
• 8:33
  you spent part of your career communicating public
• 8:36
  health guidance during the pandemic
• 8:38
  in national media sources,
• 8:40
  So so trying to instill trust in healthcare
• 8:43
  institutions and in some of the data coming
• 8:45
  out during, obviously, a major health crisis.
• 8:48
  So I wonder,
• 8:50
  how do you think about rebuilding
• 8:52
  trust now post pandemic,
• 8:54
  within the wider health care ecosystem?
• 8:57
  And what role does CVS play in all
• 8:59
  of that?
• 9:01
  I think you've really hit on a
• 9:04
  critically important and, to be honest with you,
• 9:07
  painful
• 9:09
  reality in US health care today.
• 9:11
  The Time magazine and Gallup did a survey.
• 9:15
  It's been about two years ago now. It
• 9:17
  showed roughly 70%
• 9:19
  of people in The US do not believe
• 9:22
  the health care system has its best interest
• 9:24
  at
• 9:26
  heart. As the ultimate service industry, that's incredibly
• 9:30
  sad
• 9:31
  that, 70%
• 9:33
  of people in The US don't trust that
• 9:34
  we're working in their best interest.
• 9:37
  So it's a 100% critical for us to
• 9:39
  rebuild that trust through consistency
• 9:42
  and transparency and clinical integrity.
• 9:45
  During the pandemic,
• 9:47
  we learned that being the smartest person in
• 9:49
  the room, being right all the time, being
• 9:51
  a 100% positive, it's our way or the
• 9:53
  highway,
• 9:54
  that is is not the way that you
• 9:56
  build trust. Right? It's being open and honest
• 9:59
  and actually listening to what people care about
• 10:02
  and then ensuring we can meet them where
• 10:03
  they are. And that's what we're very much
• 10:05
  focused on doing right now is
• 10:08
  is ensuring we know what people care about,
• 10:10
  ensuring that they have the information to allow
• 10:13
  them to navigate to what they see as
• 10:16
  important for their health,
• 10:17
  and that we can actually do what we
• 10:19
  say we'll do. We we can connect people
• 10:22
  through touch points where we earn trust over
• 10:25
  time. And when care feels coordinated and predictable,
• 10:28
  it starts feeling more trustworthy.
• 10:30
  And that's exactly what we wanna do is
• 10:32
  we want to be trustworthy
• 10:34
  because we understand what's important to our members
• 10:37
  and our patients and our consumers, and then
• 10:39
  we deliver on that if we say that
• 10:41
  we can.
• 10:42
  Absolutely. No. It's a great it's a great
• 10:43
  message, Amy. And I wonder
• 10:46
  extending that message and talking a little bit
• 10:48
  more about trust with
• 10:50
  hospitals specifically given that that is a large
• 10:52
  piece of of the individuals listening in right
• 10:55
  now, the executives leading the the largest health
• 10:57
  systems across the country.
• 10:59
  What do you want them to know? What
• 11:00
  do you want the leaders of our our
• 11:02
  nation's largest hospitals to know about how CVS
• 11:05
  specifically is is thinking about the future of
• 11:08
  care delivery? And, you know, we hear so
• 11:10
  much right now, all over the country, certainly
• 11:13
  in a lot of local media sources,
• 11:15
  about the friction between health systems and insurers.
• 11:19
  So so where do you think are some
• 11:20
  of the best opportunities for these systems and
• 11:23
  for insurers,
• 11:24
  broadly like CVS to work together rather than,
• 11:28
  consistent conflict?
• 11:30
  Yeah.
• 11:31
  The friction is real, and it's painful. It's
• 11:34
  painful for for Aetna.
• 11:36
  It's painful
• 11:37
  for Caremark and for CVS. It's painful for
• 11:41
  every
• 11:42
  physician out there, and it's painful for every
• 11:44
  health care system out there.
• 11:46
  And so we are a 100% committed to
• 11:48
  working to reduce the friction.
• 11:50
  We're working on redesigning the way we have
• 11:53
  things like prior authorizations
• 11:55
  that, we're minimizing
• 11:57
  any the number that have prior authorization required
• 12:01
  and only having things that require prior auth
• 12:03
  that, can be
• 12:05
  misused
• 12:07
  or could put patients at risk. And so
• 12:09
  we're really trying to streamline and simplify how
• 12:11
  often we do it. And then when we
• 12:13
  do have a prior authorization,
• 12:15
  trying to make it manageable and visible.
• 12:18
  Ideally,
• 12:20
  having things like,
• 12:24
  automatic fill in things rather than requiring clinicians
• 12:27
  or health systems to fill in information
• 12:30
  can really help streamline and simplify.
• 12:32
  But using that shared data and evidence can
• 12:35
  guide decisions in a much more effective way.
• 12:38
  The reason we can't just do away with
• 12:40
  prior authorization
• 12:41
  is you would be shocked at the amount
• 12:43
  of fraud, waste, and abuse in the system.
• 12:45
  And so the reason it's there is to
• 12:47
  protect patients and keep costs low, but I
• 12:49
  think that we have real capacity to take
• 12:52
  a lot of the friction out as we
• 12:53
  do the right thing for patients and members
• 12:55
  and health systems.
• 12:57
  And it is so clear, Amy, of the
• 12:59
  investments that that CVS is making in this
• 13:01
  space with with just prior authorization improvements alone.
• 13:05
  And I know there's been a lot of
• 13:06
  investments made in care navigation for for members
• 13:09
  and for patients.
• 13:10
  And just from our perspective, talking with leaders
• 13:13
  at CVS, we talked to Aetna's president just
• 13:15
  a just a few weeks back about his
• 13:17
  his commitment
• 13:18
  to improving that payer provider friction. So it's
• 13:21
  it's very obvious of what's coming out from
• 13:23
  the company that this is a focus,
• 13:25
  for leadership. So really, really fascinating to get
• 13:28
  your perspective on all of this as well.
• 13:30
  Before we go, what else are we missing?
• 13:32
  Is there any final thoughts or final bits
• 13:35
  of advice that you wanna offer the audience,
• 13:37
  although you have the ears of a lot
• 13:38
  of other colleagues from around the country?
• 13:41
  Just that, we believe that the industry is
• 13:44
  in the midst of of a significant transformation
• 13:48
  and that the future will be one that
• 13:50
  keeps patients
• 13:52
  and the clinicians who care for them at
• 13:54
  the center of every decision.
• 13:55
  And so ensuring that we
• 13:58
  continuously and relentlessly
• 14:01
  simplify the administrative complexity
• 14:03
  so that the person who needs help and
• 14:06
  the person who can help gets to actually
• 14:08
  have the relationship that matters.
• 14:10
  And we're gonna keep doing that with evidence,
• 14:12
  with empathy, with transparency,
• 14:15
  and that we want to be the most
• 14:18
  trusted name in American health care, and we
• 14:19
  can only do that if we're working tightly
• 14:22
  together with all the rest of the partners
• 14:24
  in the health care ecosystem.
• 14:26
  Wonderful. Well, doctor Compton Phillips, thank you so
• 14:29
  much for taking the time to be with
• 14:31
  me here on the podcast and for sharing
• 14:33
  your insights with our audience. We truly appreciate
• 14:35
  it. It was a pleasure, Jacob. Thank you
• 14:38
  so much for having me. Likewise. And to
• 14:40
  our audience, if you'd like to listen to
• 14:42
  more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare, you can visit
• 14:44
  beckers hospital review dot com.