Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Improving Cancer Care Quality and Costs at Florida Blue, part of GuideWell with Thomas Graf, MD
Transcript
- 0:02This is where health insurance leadership comes together.
- 0:05Becker's fourth annual spring payer issues roundtable brings
- 0:08together over 400
- 0:10payer and health plan executives and more than
- 0:13100 speakers to Chicago April.
- 0:16This year's event includes keynote conversations with the
- 0:19industry's top leaders and former president George w
- 0:23Bush. For the full agenda and event details,
- 0:25visit beckershospitalreview.com
- 0:27and click on the events tab in the
- 0:29upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you
- 0:31here in Chicago.
- 0:33Hello, everyone. This is Elizabeth Cassello with the
- 0:36Becker's Payer Issues podcast. I'm thrilled today to
- 0:39be joined by doctor Tom Graff, chief medical
- 0:41officer of Florida Blue. Doctor Graff, thank you
- 0:44so much for joining us today.
- 0:46Yeah. My pleasure. It's exciting, to be able
- 0:48to talk about this project. Yeah. So before
- 0:50we jump into the project, could we hear
- 0:52a little bit more on your career background?
- 0:53Tell us a bit about yourself
- 0:55and your current role at Florida Blue.
- 0:58Absolutely. Happy to. So,
- 1:00thirty years in health care, I think I've
- 1:02had the privilege of,
- 1:04coming at it from literally every direction from
- 1:07patient
- 1:09to learner to physician
- 1:10to educator to academic to researcher
- 1:14to consultant, and then physician executive,
- 1:17both within,
- 1:18clinical delivery systems primarily
- 1:21as well as,
- 1:22health plans. And so that, I think, given
- 1:24me a really unique perspective.
- 1:26My career has really been centered, though, around,
- 1:29driving quality
- 1:30to reduce total cost of care. Right? How
- 1:33do we make things better for everyone in
- 1:35this equation? And,
- 1:37you know, that's led me obviously through population
- 1:39health and value based care and the ability
- 1:42to really
- 1:43change clinical model
- 1:45and payment model in a way that makes
- 1:47sense for patients,
- 1:49for physicians,
- 1:50and for the people ultimately paying for it,
- 1:52which is you and me and all the
- 1:54rest of the folks out there. So,
- 1:56the goal in in my life is really
- 1:57to make a difference
- 1:59in those areas, and this is one of
- 2:01those key areas where it's it's so clear
- 2:05around both the quality improvement and the cost
- 2:08improvement that's made it, very exciting. Obviously, GuideWell
- 2:11is also Florida Blue's parent is also the,
- 2:14mission driven organization
- 2:16that allows,
- 2:18activities like I just described
- 2:20to occur, right, focused on delivering high quality,
- 2:23affordable care with a commitment to providing exceptional
- 2:25personalized service to members. So that that constellation
- 2:29of events brought me to to Florida Blue,
- 2:32from, you know,
- 2:33having had experience in a lot of really
- 2:35innovative organizations,
- 2:37Ascension Health and their national team, Horizon Blue
- 2:39Cross in New Jersey,
- 2:41Chartus, which is a health care consulting company.
- 2:43And and,
- 2:44one of the highlights, I think, of my
- 2:46career is I spent over a decade at
- 2:48Geisinger Health System and learned a lot of
- 2:50the the basics of what is now being
- 2:53delivered across Florida,
- 2:55at that time.
- 2:56Well, thank you for giving us that context.
- 2:59And more specifically, the project that we were
- 3:01alluding to earlier
- 3:03was, related to cancer care with Florida Blue.
- 3:05So for background,
- 3:07Florida Blue has been partnered with Evelyn on
- 3:09cancer care navigation since 2021.
- 3:12Can Can you elaborate on what drove that
- 3:14initiative to translate to Medicare Advantage members and
- 3:17why focus on that population?
- 3:19Yeah. That's a great question. So so we
- 3:21had been doing,
- 3:23utilization
- 3:24management with Evelyn, really relying on their
- 3:27clinical expertise in what, is the highest value
- 3:32care based on,
- 3:33recommendations from
- 3:35from NCCN,
- 3:36from ASTRO, all of the,
- 3:38latest and greatest information. How do we make
- 3:41sure we bring that consistently
- 3:43for our members? Right? The the the challenge
- 3:45with driving quality to reduce total cost of
- 3:47care is really around that ability to reliably
- 3:50deliver
- 3:52measurably better care, and they've been they've been
- 3:54helping us with that for many years. And
- 3:56through that process, what we recognized is that
- 3:59reliably
- 4:00deliver part was, unfortunately, and this is the
- 4:03case, you know, across the country, highly varied,
- 4:07depending on where you got your cancer care,
- 4:10what part of Florida, what provider, what system.
- 4:13In in many cases, in almost all cases,
- 4:15the care was was excellent in terms of
- 4:18the technical capabilities, if you will. But what
- 4:21we did find is members that were sort
- 4:23of slipping through the cracks around, you know,
- 4:25maybe they didn't have,
- 4:27perfect pain control. Obviously, that happens to cancer
- 4:30patients. Maybe they were having side effects from
- 4:33their therapies,
- 4:34and,
- 4:36it it often leads to
- 4:38additional care,
- 4:40you know, emergency room care,
- 4:43phone calls that go unanswered, and patients were
- 4:46struggling with that. The other thing that we
- 4:49noticed, which was equally troubling, is often
- 4:51there's a gap between when the patient sort
- 4:54of notified that they have cancer
- 4:56and then getting it hooked up with a
- 4:59provider that's providing that definitive care,
- 5:01you know, medical oncology, radiation oncology, surgical oncology.
- 5:05And that gap is incredibly
- 5:07stressful for members, for their families,
- 5:09and for the delivery of care.
- 5:12And those two gaps, that that variation in
- 5:15care and that time gap between diagnosis and
- 5:19onset of definitive care,
- 5:21created the need, for a program like this.
- 5:24And so we wanted to work with Evelyn
- 5:26because at the end of the day, it
- 5:28has to work, obviously, for the patients. It
- 5:30has to work for the providers, the physicians,
- 5:33the hospitals,
- 5:34and it has to work for,
- 5:36the health plan. And typically or often these
- 5:40programs are developed in isolation,
- 5:42and they're developed either, you know, just by
- 5:45the provider, just by the the the the
- 5:47group like Evelyn,
- 5:49or just by the health plan.
- 5:51And, you know, maybe they involve members. Typically,
- 5:53they do, patients. But but often, those other
- 5:56groups are sort of left out. And what
- 5:58you get is a solution that fits great
- 6:00for one stakeholder
- 6:02and doesn't really fit too great for the
- 6:04other stakeholders. And what we wanted was something
- 6:06meaningfully different, and that gave us the the
- 6:08opportunity to
- 6:10to do that. Obviously, you know, most, certainly
- 6:13not all, but but many members,
- 6:16are Medicare aged that's that, suffer from cancer.
- 6:20And so focusing that population at least first
- 6:22makes sense. There's certainly nothing about this program
- 6:24that in any way would not translate to,
- 6:26unfortunately, any patient that's that's suffering from cancer.
- 6:29So that's, I think, the other piece to
- 6:31exercise. Although we we started with Medicare and
- 6:33focused on that as a bean point, really
- 6:35applies very, very evenly and and and appropriately
- 6:38across,
- 6:39any age group that's suffering from from cancer.
- 6:43I see. And early results
- 6:45show a forty percent reduction in hospital and
- 6:48ER visits and ninety five percent patient satisfaction.
- 6:50So what factors do you think contributed the
- 6:53most to those outcomes?
- 6:55Yeah. It's a it's a great question. I
- 6:56think that that partnership, that involvement of the
- 6:58various stakeholders,
- 7:00the very deliberate and focused approach that we
- 7:03took, we we, by, intention,
- 7:06kept our program very small, and we've been
- 7:09actually working on this for it's it's approaching
- 7:12two years at this point.
- 7:14A year and a half, two years at
- 7:15this point. And so the ability to
- 7:19implement,
- 7:20test,
- 7:21refine,
- 7:22then bring on the next element, implement, test,
- 7:25refine, and we kept going through that and
- 7:28iterating. You know? So what's the best way
- 7:30to connect
- 7:31the Evelyn
- 7:33team, which was very experienced
- 7:35in in in,
- 7:37these serious conversations.
- 7:39Right? End of life conversations,
- 7:41health care improvement conversations. What are your goals
- 7:44of therapy? They're experienced and trained specifically in
- 7:47motivational interviewing, in goal based treatment plans, in
- 7:51interacting with patients when they you know, look.
- 7:54Some of these folks are literally at their
- 7:56worst,
- 7:57of course, because they have this horrible diagnosis
- 7:59and they've got, often a bad prognosis. Sometimes
- 8:02it's good. We we like those better, obviously,
- 8:05and are struggling with side effects and problems.
- 8:07And those folks are highly trained to have
- 8:09those really high impact conversations.
- 8:12And then because of the way we built
- 8:14the model, so we tested each all individually.
- 8:16How do we best connect with patients? How
- 8:18do we best connect with the hospital systems?
- 8:21How do we manage the fact that, you
- 8:22know, some of these comprehensive cancer centers in
- 8:25the state of Florida, and there are several,
- 8:27already have
- 8:28care management and and navigation services and support
- 8:31services, and their and those members are taken
- 8:34care of very well. How do we step
- 8:36back in that scenario and let those folks
- 8:38that are getting great care continue to great
- 8:40get great care through their providers? But But
- 8:42for those where there's a gap or where
- 8:43those where they're not they're not having, maybe
- 8:45it's a smaller oncology practice and they don't
- 8:47have those kinds of resources.
- 8:49How do we jump in and support those
- 8:50members in a way? Or, you know, they
- 8:53they they weren't, for whatever reason, unable to
- 8:55reach the people that were assigned. You know,
- 8:58unfortunately, I have a a personal story. It
- 9:00impacted my family.
- 9:02One of my family members had a had
- 9:04a cancer diagnosis,
- 9:06and, you know, we we had, first of
- 9:08all, that gap between diagnosis and definitive therapy
- 9:11that was troubling.
- 9:13Maybe a little less so because we have
- 9:15a lot of folks in health care and
- 9:16the family. So we worked our way through
- 9:18that. But then, you know, we went to
- 9:20the provider organization, and and when we saw
- 9:22the medical oncologist, we got a medical care
- 9:24management person. And when we talked to the
- 9:25radiation oncologist, we got a radiation
- 9:28care management person. We talked to the right
- 9:30surgical oncologist, we had a surgical oncology,
- 9:34manager. And and so, you know, what we
- 9:36had was a ton of care management, not
- 9:38necessarily enough care, and not necessarily
- 9:41enough connectivity. And so work this program really
- 9:44designed to overcome
- 9:46all of those, types of barriers. So combination
- 9:48of high touch care,
- 9:51high-tech care. So the ability to connect, you
- 9:53know, twenty four hours a day, three hundred
- 9:55sixty five days a week. You know, the
- 9:57vast majority of the calls are managed within
- 9:5915. So if a patient calls in, if
- 10:02almost always, eighty eighty plus percent of the
- 10:05time, we're talking to them within fifteen minutes,
- 10:06a 100% within two hours. So the longest
- 10:09any patient goes with a question unanswered
- 10:11was two hours.
- 10:12And the ability to have that reassurance that
- 10:15when you need help, help is gonna be
- 10:17there. And then talking them through and doing
- 10:20those things about how can we get you
- 10:22help so you don't have to go to
- 10:23the emergency room, but you get your pain
- 10:26controlled? How can we get you help so
- 10:27you don't have to go to the hospital,
- 10:29to manage your, you know, nausea and vomiting
- 10:31or whatever it is that you're experiencing from
- 10:33a side effect? You know what? Or just
- 10:35you're just anxious, and you need somebody to
- 10:37talk to. Alright?
- 10:39Or you're struggling. You're not gonna be able
- 10:41to make your appointment. How do you get
- 10:43it rescheduled in a time frame that's still
- 10:45good for your cancer therapy, and how do
- 10:47you manage that when you're, you know, suffering
- 10:49at home and you're, like I said, not
- 10:50at your best, may not be able to
- 10:52do that. So everything from, you know, what
- 10:53I'm gonna call navigation services, I e making
- 10:56appointments and and helping manage that piece, but
- 10:58more importantly, managing those those side effects, those
- 11:02complications,
- 11:03and those issues. And then for those patients
- 11:05that are in that that gap period between,
- 11:07you know, definitive diagnosis and definitive treatment,
- 11:11how do we accelerate that? How do we
- 11:12support that person? How do we help them
- 11:14find the best care for them?
- 11:16Those are all of the pieces
- 11:19that are part of the program. And like
- 11:21I said, we we worked through
- 11:23each one of those connection points. So what
- 11:25can we do with the primary care physicians
- 11:27to make as easy as possible for them
- 11:29to refer and enroll a patient?
- 11:32How do we best connect with the patients?
- 11:33Is it telephonic? Is it through an app?
- 11:35Is it through other electronic means? We set
- 11:38up all of those pieces. We can meet
- 11:39the patient where they are. Whatever works for
- 11:41them is the way we interact with them.
- 11:44And then, you know, finally, how do we
- 11:46connect with those cancer centers and those oncologists
- 11:48to make sure that what we're doing really
- 11:50is additive and not getting in the way
- 11:52because that's certainly not the goal. That's that's
- 11:54how we've done it, and and that's what's
- 11:56produced those results.
- 11:58So a couple of follow ups to that.
- 11:59I know you said you're keeping the program
- 12:01small. How many people are involved? And then
- 12:04my other question, you mentioned the tech enabled
- 12:07components there. How is that registering for a
- 12:11Medicare age population?
- 12:13What has been the reception to different tech
- 12:15components?
- 12:16So I'm gonna take the last one first,
- 12:18and then we'll go back and cut the
- 12:19number of patients because because I agree with
- 12:21you. So it is number one, it doesn't
- 12:22work for everybody. Right? One size does not
- 12:25fit all despite what, Henry Ford said when
- 12:27he was building his model t.
- 12:29That said,
- 12:31even with our, Florida Blue portal,
- 12:34we have electronic connections with over 50% of
- 12:37our Medicare members,
- 12:39and the vast majority of those are on
- 12:42that website once a week to once a
- 12:44month. So they're using it, using a lot.
- 12:46The the tech savviness of our Medicare population
- 12:50is increasing, you know, every year. Right? Most
- 12:53of these folks at this point used a
- 12:54lot of technology, used a lot of email,
- 12:56used a lot of websites, used a lot
- 12:58of computers,
- 12:59in their work, and now they're now they're
- 13:01retiring in their in the Medicare roles.
- 13:04That said, and and the app is even
- 13:07more user friendly and can,
- 13:09easily be installed on their devices either by
- 13:12the patient or family member or remotely if
- 13:14we need to. So the ability to support
- 13:17the member in that regard
- 13:19is,
- 13:19is high. Obviously, a lot of members we
- 13:21still talk to just on the phone.
- 13:23It's amazing,
- 13:24you know, that that 100 year techno 100
- 13:27year old technology still works
- 13:29and, is able to to provide a good
- 13:31connection for them. That that that may be
- 13:34the most common, way that we're interacting, particularly
- 13:36for a lot of these more urgent needs.
- 13:39They may even if they have the app,
- 13:40they may single the need for for for
- 13:42contact through the app, and then we call
- 13:44them back and talk to them on the
- 13:45phone. Because, obviously, that that sort of, you
- 13:47know, face to face or at least voice
- 13:49to voice, although often face to face through
- 13:51the app, can can give us that ability
- 13:53to support them more fully.
- 13:57Over
- 13:58the
- 13:59the year and a half, so January excuse
- 14:02me. Yeah. From January through June 2025,
- 14:05860
- 14:06new members were identified.
- 14:08We reached out to 702
- 14:10of those either through,
- 14:12they were identified either through our, I'm gonna
- 14:15call them predictive modeling. So looking at people
- 14:17and understanding that they now had a cancer
- 14:19diagnosis and what it was, or through direct
- 14:21physician referrals or care management referrals, we identified
- 14:24those eight sixty two. We reached out to
- 14:26over 700 of them.
- 14:28Of those, 216
- 14:30were were reached, were eligible for the program,
- 14:33were interested in the program, and completed that
- 14:35initial assessment.
- 14:36And then we've had,
- 14:39about a 182
- 14:40of them
- 14:41complete the program to date. So as I
- 14:43said, purposely small, testing it at each state,
- 14:46testing different pieces,
- 14:48along the way. Since,
- 14:51since, let's say, the first of the year,
- 14:53we've really started expanding that and and making
- 14:55it a true program as opposed to a
- 14:57a build and develop kind of pilot.
- 15:00And and we're finding very similar results, very
- 15:02high engagement rates, about 84%
- 15:05engagement. About a third of the members were
- 15:07actually able to contact, recognizing that, you know
- 15:10what, a lot of the other members are
- 15:12probably folks that are already getting great care
- 15:14management support through their oncologists.
- 15:17And so we, you know, we we step
- 15:18back and let them know we're available if
- 15:20needed and and leave, you know, leave them
- 15:22alone. The only thing worse than no care
- 15:24management is too much care management.
- 15:26So, making sure we know our role and
- 15:28our place,
- 15:29but for those that that need it, that,
- 15:31you know, roughly a third, a little bit
- 15:32less,
- 15:33of the folks,
- 15:35really see value in it. And I I
- 15:36think you were mentioning this earlier. Right? Ninety
- 15:39three percent of members report the highest overall
- 15:42satisfaction. Ninety four percent reported they would recommend
- 15:45the program to others, which to me is
- 15:47is,
- 15:48pretty exciting results.
- 15:51So in terms of value, Florida Blue said
- 15:53the program is already helping to lower cost,
- 15:55which makes a lot of sense because you're
- 15:57being careful with the care management, but you're
- 15:59also having those lower hospital and ER visit,
- 16:02amounts.
- 16:03So what specific data are you looking at,
- 16:05when it comes to seeing those lower costs?
- 16:08Yeah. It's a great it's a great question.
- 16:10Just to be clear, right, we we measure
- 16:12value across six domains.
- 16:14We look at quality. Obviously, we look at
- 16:17utilization. Right? So that reduction in hospital and
- 16:19and ED rates.
- 16:21We look at at return on investment. Obviously,
- 16:23the the dollars matter, in in this day
- 16:25and age where health care is, you know,
- 16:27$5,300,000,000,000.
- 16:29Anything that we can do to slow that
- 16:31growth rate down is is important. We look
- 16:33at provider satisfaction, the physicians, the folks that
- 16:36are involved in the care. We look at
- 16:37the member satisfaction, and then and then we
- 16:39look at variation. Right? So are there variations
- 16:43in performance based on any of your typical
- 16:45demographic factors like area deprivation index or socioeconomic
- 16:50status, urban versus rural?
- 16:52Obviously, you know, age and sex and and,
- 16:56race and ethnicity are areas that we consider
- 16:58important. So we look for variation there.
- 17:01Specifically related to the cost numbers that you
- 17:03were asking about, it is directly correlated with
- 17:06the reduction in ED visits and subsequent reduction
- 17:08in hospitalizations.
- 17:10What we're finding is about a 4 to
- 17:11$500
- 17:12savings,
- 17:13per patient per month in the in the
- 17:15program. So very excited
- 17:17to be able to,
- 17:19have that increased value. The patients, right, don't
- 17:22need to go to the emergency room because
- 17:24their symptoms are managed as an outpatient. The
- 17:26patients don't end up being hospitalized,
- 17:29for the complication that they didn't have or
- 17:31that was headed off when it was small
- 17:33and easily managed at home, for instance.
- 17:36And to me, that's the perfect example of
- 17:38improving quality
- 17:39and reducing cost. Right? We're not preventing anyone
- 17:42from getting care. We're
- 17:45we're eliminating
- 17:46the need for that care because we've taken
- 17:47care of that fire when it's very small,
- 17:49and you can put it out with a
- 17:51cup of water, and you don't need the
- 17:52fire department to come and help you.
- 17:55I thank you for adding some color on
- 17:56the value and cost components there. I wanted
- 17:59to wrap up and just ask for any
- 18:02other payers who are considering
- 18:04partnerships
- 18:04or going further into cancer care navigation.
- 18:07What advice do you have for them?
- 18:10Yeah. I I I think it's, important. As
- 18:12everyone knows, cancer is one of the the
- 18:15most terrible sponges on our our health care
- 18:18system.
- 18:19There's
- 18:20tons of exciting developments in
- 18:22new cancer therapies, new treatments, new options, new
- 18:26surgeries, new radiation protocols, etcetera.
- 18:30And and those are wonderful,
- 18:32and we always want to embrace technology heavily
- 18:34in that situation. But we have to remember
- 18:36that there's a person behind all of that
- 18:38care, and there's a a person behind all
- 18:40of that health care utilization.
- 18:43And the more we can recognize a person,
- 18:45the more that we can meet their needs.
- 18:46Look. Cancer care is always going to be
- 18:48very expensive. That that that's not gonna change
- 18:51anytime soon.
- 18:52But but we can certainly make the cancer
- 18:55care experience
- 18:57far better. And the fact that that happens
- 18:59to save some money
- 19:00and make the patients happier and make their
- 19:02their caregivers, to the extent that they have
- 19:05caregivers at home with them,
- 19:06feel like they have some support and some
- 19:09recourse,
- 19:10to me, that that's incredibly meaningful.
- 19:13And, like I said, this is one of
- 19:14those perfect areas where the the value of
- 19:18improving quality is clearly seen and and and
- 19:21the dollars are recognized and the patients,
- 19:24you know, get that much better care. And
- 19:25so it's it's certainly that, you know, win
- 19:27win win kind of scenario.
- 19:29It's a great place to to look at,
- 19:32and there's a lot of different ways to
- 19:33to do the program. So, you know, you
- 19:35can build your own. You can, I'm sure,
- 19:37Evelyn would be more than happy to speak
- 19:39to you about a program.
- 19:41And there's probably other folks out in the
- 19:42field doing some more work. So excited to
- 19:45to show that this actually makes a difference
- 19:47for me.
- 19:48Well, doctor Graf, thank you so much for
- 19:50joining us today and adding a bit more
- 19:51color on the partnership you have going.
- 19:55And to our listeners, if you'd like to
- 19:56listen to more podcasts from Becker's HealthCare, you
- 19:59can visit beckers hospital review dot com. Thanks
- 20:01again, doctor Graff.