Lisa Blue:

 

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Happy Hour Happy Patients. I’m excited to introduce to you our guest today, Rick Bennett, who runs population health solutions at Castel. In his current role, Rick serves as a bridge between people, technology, and insights, Collaborating with operations leaders, technology teams, and vendors to bring about meaningful change in healthcare. Rick’s professional journey is a testament to his passion for making a difference. With 16 years in the hospitality industry developing software solutions, he pivoted to health care. During his 12 year tenure at Cigna, Rick played pivotal roles centered around technology and value based care. Notably, he led health informatics and analytics and then played a key role in establishing their population health and value based care organization known as CareAllies. Rick’s commitment to improving health care outcomes continues to drive his impactful work, and his expertise bridges the gap between innovation and patient well-being.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

We’re excited to dive into your ongoing contribution that accelerates that transformation today. Welcome, Rick.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Thanks. I appreciate it. It’s, I want to talk to that person you introduced. I don’t think it’s a pretty good introduction. I appreciate that. Thank you.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Alright. Well, we’re so excited you’re here. We’re just gonna jump right in. So, certainly, I just gave you, I gave our listeners some background into who you are, some of the exciting work you’ve done. But I’d love for you to share something else about yourself. Something that you would like us to know about you. This might be personal or professional.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Sure. I guess one thing about me that, I I like to share is that I love to learn. So whenever I was first trying to choose my career, I went into IT specifically, and then obviously into hospitality, but I wanted to be in a role where I knew I was never going to know everything. Right? So I wanted to continuously learn, professionally and be able to grow. I knew that we would never hit, you know, the maximum capacity as far as IT goes. But beyond that, you know, I do love to learn in my personal life as well. My wife will tell you that my number one hobby is buying things for my other hobbies. But I do everything from I’ve got a blacksmith forge, scuba diving.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

I do electronics projects. You know, I’ve got a jeep that I’ve got the engine out of right now. So it’s all about learning different things and learning how things work and how you can improve upon them and Just do better. So that’s probably my big passion. Recently one of the big things that I’ve been learning about has been AI. So I listened to a great book, called The AI Revolution in Medicine. It’s by Peter Lee, Carrie Goldberg, and Isaac Kohane and that one was interesting. I said I read it.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

I should be honest with everybody. I listened to it on audiobook while I’m driving back and forth to the airport. So, but anyhow, it was a great book that talks about AI and how it could impact health care in the future. So, but again, it all goes back to learning new things.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Well I think that’s a great way to kick this off. You know certainly being a lifelong learner is Important regardless of your industry, but when you think of healthcare and technology and the rapid changes that continue to come at us, it’s it’s It’s really important to have someone like you that fosters that, within yourself and then I’m certain, you know, Passes that down to those around you. So thank you for sharing that, and, what a really diverse form, from Blacksmith to scuba diving to AI. That’s quite a range, but I love it. And certainly, I’m excited to talk more about, You know, upcoming technologies through our conversation. Certainly, we know that AI is, you know, part of that Venn diagram no matter where you’re Where you are in this, so I I I thank you for sharing that, that great resource, for us and our listeners, and I’m certain we’ll talk more about it. So in your current role, Rick, your focus is on population health solutions. I’m interested in how Value based care is really impacting the work that you guys are doing today and what that looks like for the providers or or the payers that that you engage with today.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Sure. I think the big thing that value based care represents as far as a change in health care is it’s more of a partnership role that that both payers and providers are going to play. You can’t have competing priorities and try to reach different objectives if you’re going to do value based care. So one of the key things there is just to make sure that You know, historically, the relationship between providers and payers could sometimes be very transactional. Fee for service. I mean, yes, that’s what that means. It’s transactional. And at times, at the worst of times, it could almost be adversarial.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And that Can’t be the case whenever you’re looking at value based care. So, I think that’s probably the biggest change that you’re gonna see when it comes to how payers and providers work together. And the other thing is that from both sides of that coin, the focus needs to be the patient. Right? That that needs to be Kind of where everybody’s working towards, is what’s best for the patient. You don’t have to tell, you know, if you went to somebody in a payer organization, They’re going to tell you that that’s their goal. If you go to somebody in a provider organization, they’re for sure gonna say that that’s their goal as well is to to reach that, you know, patient and get what that patient needs. But sometimes their paths are different. And I think value based care represents a merging of methodologies, if you will.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Where everybody kind of agrees upon, how they’re going to accomplish that.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Yeah. Well said. I I think you’re right. If you ask any of those players that likely would be their answer, but the approach can look very different. So, you know, I think, I’m really interested in hearing, not just in the role that you’re in now, but implementing things in a large organization like Cigna. So when you’re talking to all those stakeholders, we know that, you know, sort of initial buy-in is really important, but ongoing collaboration and hearing both sides and being able to merge those ideas is really important to successful implementation and ongoing improvement. So what are some of the strategies that you and your team have implemented to really drive some of those changes and keep that collaboration something that the stakeholders are excited about.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Yeah. Sure. One thing I think that has to be a part of it is aligned incentives. And so that has been a key focus when I was at CareAllies and at Castel is making sure that both the Providers and the payer organizations, they have the same incentives to accomplish what it is that they’re trying to do. So the targets have to be achievable. You know, there’s been a lot of work between CMS and healthcare providers. The commercial players have gotten more involved. I would say even CMS with their Medicare Advantage programs, they’re trying to achieve value based care in a lot of ways through that program as well.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

So In each one of those cases, the more successful they are, it is largely based on those incentives and those achievable targets and making sure it’s very clear to both sides on how that can be done. Now when I was at CareAllies for example, One of the big focuses was how do we give the providers the tools that they need to achieve those goals. So not just tell them, you. Now we want your quality measures to be here, we want utilization to be you know there. Instead we would give them the tools too on top of that. So you give them those achievable targets, we give them the tools. And I would say, coming over to Castel, that’s still very much True. You still want to give the providers all the tools that they need in order to accomplish their goals. But on top of that, another focus is Give them the resources.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Right? So, we spend a lot of time not just telling the providers what’s their goal, what’s their targets, what’s their, you Now here’s the tools to accomplish that, but also here’s some resources to help you achieve it. So Castel, for example, employs a fairly large department of care coordinators that will actually Do some of the work, take some of the burden out of the provider office, and put it on our organization. And that’s been really successful in helping move the needle as well.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

I think you really covered a lot of important information in that answer. Certainly the tools to do the work, but then the resources to do it. And, you know, it’s something that we often think of. I think, personally, one of the biggest opportunities in value based care is, in addition to what you already said, aligning those incentives, it’s really using The resources that we do have, right? We know that there are shortages in healthcare, and so how do we maximize the resources that we do have? And allow the, you know, the various resources from care coordinators to nursing to providers the whole team to really support each step of the care continuum. So I think those are really key. When you talk about the tools, I’m assuming that you mean technology. Is that a correct assumption?

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Well, I think technology usually has a yeah. It has an important role to play in at least delivering the tools to those providers. But for us, especially today, it’s so driven by data, that I think technology, you know, plays a huge role in that. That being said, I mentioned our care coordinators. They have incredible people skills. Right? So those aren’t necessarily technology. Those are more soft skills, and they actually develop relationships with a lot of the patients whenever they talk to them on the phone or or through whatever mechanism that they’re using, to develop those relationships. So and and one of the things I always try to do too is my role is obviously very technology focused and data focused.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

There’s a huge human element involved as well. So, that’s probably the other tool that that would, you know, bring to the table.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

And, you know, health care is a human business. Right? We’re the product, what we’re caring for are people. Right? So relationships are Certainly, key to that, developing trust, building those relationships, maintaining those relationships over time. Even in transition, you know, patients will move Different providers and how we can create stability through lasting relationships with other members of the team, also important. So I agree solely that, or, with you that technology isn’t the sole solution. It’s part of the toolbox. Right? Yeah. So from your perspective, from your vantage point, I guess, what role do you think that that technology does play in And really enhancing patient engagement or or the patient experience with engaging with the team.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

I think it’s Through providing information and informing the team members. Right? So if you think about a patient’s journey through health care, a lot of times they’re Going to their PCP. We hope they’re going to their PCP, and that’s kind of where their care journey begins. And then that PCP may send them to specialists. They may send them to other resources, the pharmacy, the, you know, different places. And one way technology can help is bring the data from all those encounters and actions together. So, you know, I talk a lot about the different data sources with our teams and where information is coming from. A lot of teams will try to run on just claims.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

They’ll try to run on just clinical information. And a lot of times you’re missing so much of the story of what’s actually going on with that patient. Right? So, if you’re looking at just what’s in your electronic medical record, you’re gonna see what’s happening inside your walls. You’re gonna get a really deep look. You’re gonna know, you know, very detailed information about what’s happening inside of your organization. But you may not know that that patient is seeing a specialist, for another condition. And I’ve actually seen cases where, we would get claims information which gives you a little bit broader, not as deep, gives you a broader view of what’s going on with the patient. And we were able to identify that, oh, this patient is actually seeing a specialist for whatever condition it may be.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

It may be a cardiologist or whatever. But I’ve seen it where the PCP didn’t even realize that that patient was seeking that type of care. So that changes their approach. Right? So That’s, I think, a big way that technology plays a role, and this can play a role and even a better role in the future. I think sometimes we still struggle with, bringing all that irrigating all that data together and providing that complete picture of the patient. So, there’s other things as well. Just one of the things that we try to do is 1 call. Our team calls it 1 call for all.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

So if a patient may be on a list to be called for, cancer screening. Rather than calling that patient and talking to them about a cancer screening, You can have their full picture in front of you. You know all the things that are required for that patient. So you can talk through all of those different pieces. They may need, you know, diabetic screenings or or HbA1c or, you know, whatever those things are. Instead of calling them next month Because they’re on a different list, if you can address all those issues in 1 phone call, that’s much better customer service. It’s a better experience for the patient. They feel like you understand everything that’s going on with them.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And you can actually be less disruptive hopefully in their life. Instead of having them come in for, you know, Four different tests over time because they hit 4 different lists over the course of a year. If you can address those things at once, I think it’s showing that you Care about the patient, what’s going on in their life. But also, it’s just a better customer experience. And I say customer. That’s one thing. There’s some terminology that I’d like to talk about at some point too. But, Yeah.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

I think that’s one important role that it can have. There’s always the ability to identify conditions and those things as well. But for me, personally, I tend to be focused and maybe it’s part of my hospitality background, but tend to be focused on what that patient’s experience is going to be.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

So First of all, I love 1 call for all. I completely agree with that concept. You know, we once upon a time led a Team that was doing this type of outreach, and we talked about that. Right? Like, what’s the fine line between supporting and guiding someone and stalking them? Right? It can be a fine line. Right? You’re calling them weekly or monthly or repeatedly. Right? They may feel like you don’t understand all the things that are going on. And so taking The you know, using the the tools that we have to say, here’s all the things that are relevant to this patient, and I can help them prioritize Right? This is really important because we haven’t seen you for your chronic care for over a year, so let’s start there. But while we’re here, we can also talk to you about some of these cancer screenings, so I think that’s fantastic.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

You actually already just answered my next question. I was gonna ask about, you know, how you think your hospitality background has influenced this work. And so let’s talk about that a little bit more and talk about some of the Nomenclature around, patients or consumers or, you know, what customers. Let’s talk a little bit more about that.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Sure. Yeah. One of the things that I noticed right away when I moved from hospitality into healthcare was that in hospitality, you don’t talk, you really don’t even talk about customers. Right? You talk about guests at your hotel. I mostly worked in software for the hotel industry. But you talk about guests, maybe in a restaurant, you take about Talk about patrons, which are people that support you as a business. And so the perspective is Often very different. In healthcare, we talk about patients which is probably the best term as far as when you’re talking about healthcare and that Who that patient is to you.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

But we also talk about members or CMS will call them beneficiaries. And a lot of those terms bring to mind more hey we’re doing this for you versus a patron or a guest who either you want to take care of or You’re doing, they’re doing a service for you by coming to your business. So I think that was one of the big differences, when I came from, Hospitality to health care. And it kind of paid off for me right away when I was at Cigna. I was Working for someone who’s been one of my biggest mentors throughout my career. His name is Raj Shrestha. But he came to me and said, You know, we need to be making phone calls to diabetics in 2 weeks and, so we needed a disease registry. So I said absolutely.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Can I do that? We’ll be making phone calls in 2 weeks. As soon as he walked away, I was searching the Internet. What is a disease registry? So, because I was so new to the industry, but once I found it, I saw what the intent was, which was to understand The diabetic journey of a patient. I immediately thought, well, we can probably do better than that. And because I know we’re going to be calling this for a STARS probe. Probably even better terms for that Just a patient registry, but, it’s certainly better than a disease registry. So, that was one of the first times that It paid off and we saw even better terms for that than just a patient registry, but, it’s certainly better than a disease registry. So, that was one of the first times that it paid off and we saw huge gains in our STARS program.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

We were actually a 4 star program whenever we first started doing this. In the 1st year, all the measures that we put into that registry, which we had started mid year, I think it was July, we’d gone up 5 percentage points in every measure that we put into that registry. And so that was significant. The next year we rounded to 44.5 On our star rating and then the following year we rounded down to 4.5 but by the 3rd year we had hit the 5 star. So I mean, There were a lot of things that went into it beyond just that, but I think that played a big role in, you know, just that consumer centric, We’re doing this for them. They’re not doing something for us by coming in.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

You know, first of all, congratulations. That’s really remarkable improvements, And and, you know, it’s tough when you’re already, you know, at the upper end of that to continue to have those Again, so really remarkable work, and certainly I think that perspective, one, words matter. Right? Disease registry versus patient registry versus how can we help you. Right? You’re not helping us. We talk about that too much in our current work, not It’s time for you to come in. You’re past due for your visit. How does that feel to the person that’s receiving it? That’s it. For what? Why does that matter to me? Right? And really changing that, You know here’s why coming in for this is going to help you, help your child, help whomever we’re doing the outreach on behalf of, and so I think that That perspective that you brought to your teams in in these roles from the hospitality industry certainly had a profound experience for for your patients and, so so excellent.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

I love that. Awesome. So, yeah, that’s it. I love it. I I think, you know, when we can bring all these different aspects from different industries and share those pieces that, you know, we solve to be the most Successful when people get the most benefit, then why not bring that here? Right? I think that’s, You know, the quintessential low hanging fruit of how do we make this better? Well, we treat people as best as we can. We think of them like this. Right? Right? Yeah. I mean,

 

Rick Bennett:

 

If you think about it, like, what’s more frustrating is when you call their office and you don’t get a phone call back. Right? Like, If somebody’s making a phone call to a provider’s office, like, that’s the most important thing in their life right now. And if they don’t get a call by the end of the day and it’s the next day, That’s when you get people going to emergency departments, urgent cares, and seeking care elsewhere. So, yeah, it’s just the customer , it comes back to customer service.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

You know, it really does. And I think, you know, it’s The entire continuum. Right? If they’re calling in, they don’t get an answer, or even when they’re leaving the office, you know, the simple thing is to set expectations. You know, we’re gonna call this in. It should be there today, or Mhmm. You should expect to pick it up tomorrow. Right? As a patient, It’s above most important to you because you’re experiencing whatever it is you’re experiencing that led you there, so you expect that it’s They’re dropping everything. Right? That’s not realistic because they’re going into the next patient’s room, but but I think setting those expectations is really important, You know, and and in the way we communicate, one of the things we used to talk about is oftentimes in healthcare it feels very frustrating because people are you the same things but you know how you frame that also matters.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

I used to work in a procedural area and so I would say to patients I’m gonna ask you some questions you might have already answered but it’s just to keep you safe right? We’re going to talk about your allergies and we’re going to run through the procedure you’re going to have. But if I just said what are your allergies?

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Right.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Do you have any allergies? It looks like I’m really not paying attention. And so the way we frame communication, also very important.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

That’s a great point. Actually, that’s been a frustration of mine is, didn’t I already answer all these but now that you put it in, nobody’s ever put it in that context before. Right? Like, this is, this is actually Safety thing, and we need to talk about it to make sure the answers that we have are right. So

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Right. Really, what we’re really doing is validating, right, from our perspective or Patient’s perspective, they’re like, I wrote that down 5 times. Could you look at that?

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Yeah. Exactly.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

So I think there’s numerous opportunities to continue to think about, you know, the The customer service experience, and then how does that impact the downstream, right, and how does that impact clinical outcomes? We know that it does. So, I would love to hear a little bit from, you know, we started talking about, you know, some of the things that, you know, you just read an interesting book that you shared with us. And so I would love to hear a little bit about your current work. Things that you’re focusing on, maybe, you know, some of the large data models you have that are driving your patient engagement initiatives and, You know, how does AI play into that? What are some of the things you guys are looking ahead that you’re really excited about?

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Yeah. It’s a really interesting time for Castel right now. We started the company back in January 2020. So it was a great time to start a new healthcare company, and try to launch that. So but, when we launched Castel, We started with using a lot of vendor partners that were really good at what they did and could provide us with some core capabilities. And we needed to do that because Castel wasn’t in a position to develop new solutions and put those in place from the ground up and be able to hit, The requirements as far as getting the company actually operational and doing what we needed to do, which was taking care of patients. So, Those strategic partners are still in place and we’re still working with them. But we’re also moving towards having our data platform be hosted on an Azure environment, and we’ll be using modern technologies.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And we’re bringing in Databricks and Snowflake and a lot of the technologies that are, I don’t know that they’re cutting edge anymore so much as they are at least modern technologies compared to what we were using before. That being said, we are also bringing on other technologies, to help us with our workflow tools. So, We’re bringing on a CRM system, and that goes along with the whole idea of, you know, approaching the patient like they’re a customer. Right. We’re providing them a service, and they’re doing us a favor by, you know, coming into our organization and working with us and bringing us their business. And so the CRM approach is different in that, today a lot of the outreach that takes place is based on off of a list. And they just go down the list and they’re calling those individuals. They have that complete view that we’ve talked about where they can see from claims and from, you know, the EMR clinical systems and pharmacy systems, exactly what’s kind of going on with the patient.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

But it’s still more linear going down that list. With the CRM, we’re gonna be able to introduce new ways of Communicating with the patients. We’re going to be able to, maybe, you know, some people might respond better if they get a text first. Right? And if they’ve selected texting as their preferred communication. So we might might be able to start that whole chain off by texting them, Letting them know, that a either, you know, if you go to this link, there’s a service available to you or let them know that somebody from our organization may be calling them and and talking to them about some of the things that we would, like to to do with them. So, and others are emails. But the nice thing is with a CRM, you can go down kind of a decision tree. Some people may start at text, some might start at a phone call, and then step 2 might be something else.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

So it’s a lot more sophisticated in that way. So we’re excited about implementing that as well. The other thing you mentioned AI, I do think there’s a place for AI. There’s absolutely a place for AI in health care. I remember back a few years ago, everybody was talking about Blockchain and how Blockchain could solve problems for health care. And a lot of that never really came to fruition. And in my Personal opinion, a lot of that was, blockchain was a solution that was looking for a problem versus, I think AI is going to play A very different role and has much more upside to it. So, you know, I recently had a meeting with Microsoft and we were talking about, Just productivity improvements that AI can make for the workforce, behind the scenes.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Nuance has their ambient technology where it can be in the room and actually, basically, listen to the interaction between the provider and the patient and produce notes and those types of things. I think that’ll all be great, and it will be a big jump forward. But we’re also going to see, where AI can help us start to understand, Our patient population is better. I’ve talked a lot about that customer centric view and seeing everybody as a person and not, You know, just as another transaction for us to go through. And I think AI will help us, with that as well, and understand where patients are at. It’s interesting. I was at Dreamforce, which is Salesforce’s big conference, And their whole conference was about AI, but they did have some cool technologies that I thought could be translated. One of the 1 the sessions that I went to had, where the AI would actually listen to the conversation between the they call them agents, but in our example, it’d be care coordinators, and the patient.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And it could say, hey. And it would like to live coach them through the process and say, hey. This person mentioned the fact that they’re more worried about where they’re gonna get their next meal than they are about coming in and getting a cancer screening. Well, that’s something that can actually come up in real time and say, hey, You may wanna talk to them about Unite Us and what, you know, services we can get them connected to. So, You know, and that’s not even going into the talks about some of the work that’s been going on around, Radiology and reading, images and those types of things. Those are all great. I’m in population health, I’m focused more on a different end of that process, I guess, and getting people engaged. So I think those are the areas of AI that I’ve been looking at.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

I think that’s really exciting and powerful. You know, oftentimes when you, like you’re saying, you know, sort of moving down a list, and My objective is to get this patient scheduled for a cancer screening, for example. And you could understand, you know, I previously had a team that was. They were working on this. This was years ago before we started using some other technology, and they were just calling, calling, calling. And we started using texting at that time. That was really exciting because it allowed patients to say, I’m ready to talk to you about that or I need more help with that. And so it really changed the dynamic of the conversation, but I think that is now the next step, the next level of that.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Because if you’re saying this is the priority, but the patient’s saying this is the priority, then that changes that dialogue completely. So I think that’s Really exciting.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

That’s right. And it shows too that they’re listening. Right?

 

Lisa Blue:

 

So which

 

Rick Bennett:

 

is also that next level of customer service. And even if the agent didn’t catch it, If they can get coached I used the word agent, and I would not do that. That was their terminology. It’s care coordinators. But there they you know, thinking if they missed it, but the AI caught it and can coach them, then that’s that’s a huge plus As far as the customer service goes.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Absolutely. So as we wrap up today, I would love for you to share one Story or one thing that you’re most excited about, you’re most proud about. When you talk about your work, you think about this thing that you wanna, you know, Come home and share with your wife. You wanna you it’s just what gets you out of bed in the morning. I would love to wrap up by sharing that what keeps you keeps you going.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Yeah. You know, I switched from hospitality to health care originally because for me personally, no. Hospitality was fun. It was exciting work. It was definitely, at the time, probably more on the cutting edge of technology. They were doing things in hospitality that for various reasons, our industry in healthcare is very regulated. There’s a lot of things going on, that’s in some ways kind of artificially, I think suppresses our ability to innovate. Yes.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

But, what I love to hear or what the reason I made the switch I just wanted to do something that I felt like I was impacting people’s lives more. And so health care was the industry that I thought that’s probably a good place to go and I feel like I’m contributing to individuals’ lives. And so I I wasn’t gonna be a doctor, right, and I wasn’t gonna be a nurse. I was a technologist and that was where my role was going to be. But my favorite thing to hear is kind of how the tools Impact real people. So at Castel, a lot of our meetings start with, like, an experience moment or, like, a patient experience moment or a caregiver experience moment. And, some of my favorites are when I hear the last couple years. And we and so this person was kind of identified as high risk, but we don’t always we don’t call and lead with, You know, we we believe you in the last couple years.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And so this person was kind of identified as high risk, but we don’t always we don’t call and lead with, You know, we believe you may have food insecurities. Right? Like, that’s kind of a sensitive topic. But we’re building in with, Hey. We’d like to, you know, have you come in and and and have these tests done or or whatever these diagnostics or preventative measures or get a flu shot, whatever it is. But in this one particular case, they called a lady and she had gone through that. They actually were able to get her scheduled to come in for whatever it was that they were calling her about. But then she said, I just, you know, I just hope I can make it. I’ve really got to figure out how there was a problem with food.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Right? So she was trying to figure out how she was going to feed her kids and still have enough for herself to eat. And so they actually were able to get that mom connected, with some services locally, to help her with those problems. And to me, it was, like, really fulfilling. Right? Like, we identified the right person. We had our care coordinator on the phone with the right information and ready to help that individual where they needed help. Now, you know, historically this has changed over the last couple of years, but, you know, social determinants weren’t. It wasn’t healthcare. Right? Like, those were social needs. It wasn’t healthcare needs.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

But I think we’ve realized in the last few years that Those are very real impactful things that change people’s health. And so that was really fulfilling for me to hear that story. Another one and this one’s really cool because it actually impacted one of our caregivers. It was one of our team members at Castel, and, what happened was our coding and documentation team, they do longitudinal record reviews. And so that was all teed up for them. They went through and looked at this individual’s chart. They go through scanned documents, you know, everything that’s been going on with this patient. And they had found Like, is a, supplemental finding or or a secondary finding on a, on a Screening that had been done, this individual had a heart condition that was pretty severe actually, but Nobody ever took action on that.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

And it had gone on for I don’t remember the exact period of time, but it was a significant amount of time. I wanna say it was a couple years ago. But our team that was going through and doing that longitudinal record review recognized that, saw that that individual hadn’t received care for it, And actually highlighted it to the provider’s team. They got that individual in and the condition had worsened, but they were able to get the surgery that he needed, and avoided a potentially catastrophic event. And so and that like I said, that that individual that received that care was actually one of our caregiver’s dad. So, you know, these are real people. It’s value based care. There’s a lot of money involved in it.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

There’s a lot at stake when it comes to that. But at the end of the day, it’s The individual peoples and the individual stories like that that really keep me engaged and interested in what we’re doing.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Well, what a perfect way to summarize the importance, the value of the work you’re doing and to wrap up our conversation. So Thank you so much for spending time with us today, for sharing those moments of the impact of your work. I love that you guys start out meetings highlighting that because it is important for us to remember the impact of this work and everybody has played a really important role in that. So thank you for your ongoing commitment and for your time and insights you shared with us today.

 

Rick Bennett:

 

Absolutely. Thanks, Lisa. I appreciate the time. It was fun.

 

Lisa Blue:

 

Thank you for listening to Happy Hour, Happy Patients. Please consider subscribing on your platform of choice And share your favorite episodes with other health care workers who need a bright spot in their day. You can connect with my team and me directly by going to provider tech.com and clicking on connect with us.