PORTLAND, Ore., June 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Regence today announced a new partnership with Healthmap Solutions—a growing national Population Health Management company with a flagship Kidney Health Management (KHM) program—to improve care and outcomes for Regence members with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD). Effective July 1, Healthmap Solutions’ innovative national KHM program will be available to eligible Regence fully insured and Medicare Advantage members. Regence is a family of health plans in Oregon, Idaho, Utah and select counties in Washington, each an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association dedicated to making health care better, simpler and more affordable.
“Regence is committed to helping people on their health care journeys—especially our most vulnerable populations in these extraordinarily challenging times—with innovations that deliver better outcomes,” said Dr. Cheryl Pegus, Regence’s president of consumer health solutions and chief medical officer. "This solution provides compassionate, quality, person-focused care for patients facing the complex challenges of kidney disease, and helps aid providers facing unprecedented stresses from the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Patients with kidney disease have an impaired immune response and multiple co-morbid chronic diseases, putting them at a high risk for COVID-19. This risk is exacerbated by the need to maintain safe and life-sustaining access to critically important and ongoing treatments such as dialysis, further emphasizing the importance of patient support to maintain good health.
The Healthmap Solutions program enhances the physician-to-patient relationship and makes health care more affordable by ensuring a seamless transition between stages of kidney care and preemptively intervening to avoid adverse health care events. In contrast, Medicare alone spent $144 billion in 2016 on patients diagnosed with CKD and ESRD,1 according to the National Kidney Foundation. Early detection, proper care and treatment are the most effective means of treating the disease, delaying its progression and enabling the patient to live better, longer lives.
“Healthmap Solutions is excited to partner with Regence in bringing our kidney health program to its members. We know that when people are engaged in their health care, empowered with information, and a physician has more time to spend with their patients, quality of care and outcomes improve, and costs go down," said Joe Vattamattam, chief executive officer of Healthmap Solutions. “Our high-tech/right-touch approach to kidney health management aligns well with Regence's innovative and people-driven approach to making health care economically sustainable while helping to coordinate and protect those living with kidney disease.”
The National Kidney Foundation has identified CKD as the under-recognized public health care crisis.2 According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
- 37 million people in the United States live with CKD, 15% of US adults,
- 9 out of 10 adults are unaware they have CKD until the disease progresses to its more serious stage, ESRD,3
- An estimated 726,000 people live with ESRD and tens of thousands are newly diagnosed each year.
Healthmap Solutions' KHM program uses clinical big-data resources, machine learning, Artificial Intelligence, and proactive person-centered care management to identify people with CKD. The company then stratifies each person into the appropriate CKD stage to maximize effective clinical management, improving the person’s quality of care and life, and through predictive analytics preemptively identifies and intervenes with patients at risk of an adverse health care event. Working with providers and specialists, coordinated care provides support and information to guide the patient, ensuring a seamless transition to the next and most appropriate stage of care – from in-center or in-home dialysis to kidney transplants.
About Regence
Regence serves approximately 3.1 million members through its Regence health plans in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington. Each Regence health plan is a nonprofit independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. Regence is part of a family of companies dedicated to transforming health care by delivering innovative products and services that change the way consumers nationwide experience health care. For more information, please visit regence.com.
About Healthmap Solutions
Healthmap Solutions is a specialty population health management company with a specific Kidney Health Management (KHM) solution for patients with kidney disease, serving health plans, as well as accountable care organizations (ACOs) and provider groups seeking value-based solutions that improve the clinical care and financial performance for high-risk, high-cost kidney patient populations. The company has a rich history forged in data and analytics, having begun as a healthcare data clearinghouse, adding robust healthcare analytics expertise. Today Healthmap Solutions uses that experience to power a complex Kidney Health Management program with its clinical experts. Healthmap Solutions, which is a separate and independent company from Regence, also provides similar integrated programs across a full range of specialty population health management. For more information: healthmapsolutions.com.
Contact:
Chris Cooney
(407) 921-6932
chris@wilmarkgroup.com
Jared Ishkanian
(503) 525-6554
Jared.ishkanian@regence.com
1. https://www.kidney.org/news/newsroom/factsheets/KidneyDiseaseBasics
2. Ibid
3. https://www.cdc.gov/kidneydisease/pdf/2019_National-Chronic-Kidney-Disease-Fact-Sheet.pdf