← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:02]
A
@ Athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler. With Athenahealth, see how simpler is healthier at athenahealth.com.
- [00:44]
B
This is Madeline Ashley with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast and I'm excited to be joined today by Brian Ehrling, MD, President and CEO of Renown Health. Dr. Erling, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [00:56]
C
Well, thank you Madeline. It's a pleasure to be here.
- [00:59]
B
I'm so excited to get into our discussion but before we do so, do you mind sharing a little bit about yourself and Renown Health with our listeners?
- [01:07]
C
Yeah. Renowned Health is the largest not for profit health system in the state of Nevada. We serve all of Northern Nevada and the Eastern Sierras. We have several hospitals including a trauma center and a tertiary receiving center. We have about 700 providers in our medical group. We are the academic affiliate we have with the UNR School of Medicine and we have a health plan, Hometown Health which is I believe the subject of some of our discussion today. My background emergency Medicine. Originally practiced at a trauma center in Denver with progressive leadership roles and joined Renown Health in November of 22. So coming up on my three year anniversary.
- [01:52]
B
Wonderful. I thank you so much for sharing all of that and you are right, we are going to talk a little bit about that joint venture. So just for our listeners, just for any background here I believe in early mid September Kaiser and Renown entered a joint venture to launch a new outpatient care delivery system and co own a health plan together in Northern Nevada. So this in mind, could you just kind of let me know how things are going so far? Any updates you'd like to give on this this partnership?
- [02:24]
C
Yeah, things are going great. We signed that agreement as you stated last month. It's now pending regulatory approval. It was a long journey to get there. Maybe I can take us back if that's okay with you.
- [02:37]
B
Please do.
- [02:38]
C
All right, so we you know we have a provider sponsored health plan called Town Health. We really felt that if one of our core tenets of our mission is to assure that we have access to healthcare to our community that it's affordable, that we really need to maintain a presence in the managed care space. Otherwise frankly, all the work you do to keep to control costs, costs in health care, frankly are just translated to profit for insurance companies. So we really felt like we needed to be in the space. That way we could do the work to keep health care affordable. That work would translate to lower premiums and that would help drive the market and maintain affordability for our community. So we entered an RFP process only looked at not for profit health plans and basically asked who would be interested in partnering with us to help our health plan become high performing. We, the health plan had done a lot of great work. We'd gone from three and a half stars to four stars to four and a half stars on Medicare Advantage. But without scale, we simply didn't have the purchasing power or, you know, the IT platforms or the clinical delivery protocols to ensure that the health plan would be successful. So the output of that was about a six month process through the RFP and what is now about 20 months ago we made the decision to, to go with Kaiser Permanente and we're super excited about that. We spent the next 20 months working out what that relationship would look like, including what the contractual relationship would be between Renown and what will become Kaiser Permanente Nevada. Obviously that's incredibly detailed and we wanted to ensure that we crossed all the T's, dotted all the I's and ensured that we had an agreement that would sustain the test of time. So we're super excited to be partnering with them. They've never done anything like this. They've done a lot of cool things across the country. They have their classic Kaiser model. They, they have Ryzent out on the east coast and we thought Ryzent was intriguing, but we were really wanted to maintain our independence as a health system. We're really just looking for a partner in the health plan and thankfully Kaiser Permanente was willing to be creative and do something that they had never done before.
- [04:51]
B
It's great to see that you've found the perfect partner and you know that you this has come to fruition after the many months that you put into this. Could share how you envision this partnership shaping the future of healthcare delivery in Nevada maybe over the next decade.
- [05:06]
C
Yeah. So our focus over the next several years will be Northern Nevada. As we shared some details in the transaction, the health plan is essentially becoming a 5050 with Kaiser having controlling interests. We only transacted one clinic of all of our clinics, but the plan is to grow and to open three more clinics over the next three years. So not just the afford aspect that we talked about. Kaiser is known for outstanding outcomes, preventive care. But as Renown continues to grow and Renown Medical Group continues to grow, now we have this new entrant into the market that's going to continue to grow as well. So we're looking, I'm excited that we're going to have a lot more access to care. We're going to have that Kaiser Permanente model which is desirable to so many people. I think 40% of the entrants into Northern Nevada are moving from California are very familiar with Kaiser. They've been asking for this sort of model. So we think that that's really going to create choice and it's going to create an entirely new model in the state of Nevada. After three to four years, as we get our feet underneath us up here in the north, we are going to be looking to extending the model statewide.
- [06:18]
B
That's great to hear and you touched on it a little bit. But could you kind of share how this collaboration will position Renown to adapt to the needs of, you know, rapidly growing and divorce diverse Northern Nevada population?
- [06:31]
C
Yeah, the growth piece as I touched on, I mean, we're going to be continuing to grow as the community grows both as Renown and as Kaiser Permanente Nevada. But this allows us frankly to focus on what we're really good at. So we are the only not for profit academic health system in Northern Nevada. We have all the high end, high acuity care in the area. We serve about 100,000 square miles. And this allows us to continue to focus our resources into delivering the best care possible for that community.
- [07:03]
B
Yeah, and again, you also slightly touched on this a little bit just in terms of what the future looks like for this. But Even next year, 2026 and beyond, what does success for Kaiser Permanente Nevada look like in your view?
- [07:17]
C
Well, we have the basic milestones. I mean, we need to get through our regulatory approval, close the transaction. 2026 plan offerings for Hometown Health will look a lot like they currently do. But there's going to be aggressive investment in 2026 to bring new clinics, get the full IT platform in place so that we can be selling products in 26 for 27 that are, that do have the full Kaiser Permanente experience. So those are, those are our big milestones. And you know, just obviously there's going to be metrics, the typical ones. We're going to be growing the number of membership in our community. But we're also looking at cost of care per capita and ensuring that we maintain that where it needs to be. So in Nevada, northern Nevada, we're kind of a median, we're a little below median as far as total cost of care per capita. I think that's an okay place to be. But we want to ensure affordability well into the future.
- [08:16]
B
And as president and CEO of Renown Health, could you, from a leadership perspective, share any lessons learned during this entire process that you've kind of taken with you?
- [08:26]
C
Yeah, well, first off, it was, you know, I was very excited to be joining this organization because we had a provider sponsored health plan. But we had to face their reality of the market, that this was an increasingly difficult space to be in without the scale. Let me just give you an example. Kaiser Permanente's purchasing power on pharmaceuticals, which is one of the number one costs that's driving up the cost of health care for the purchasers of health care, is something that is just, it's difficult to compete with. So it took a lot of humility, frankly, for myself and my leadership team to take a step back and go, do we need help? And that's something that can be a challenge. But we knew we needed help. The key was just to find a like minded, mission oriented partner. We also several times has worked with the board. You know, sometimes you can get overly attached to the idea of a deal or a transaction and we frequently push pause and said, is this still the right thing to do? Is this all heading in the right direction? And, and those frequent pauses, those frequent introspections were really helpful to ensure that we made the right decision. And ultimately where we landed, I think is a really nice win win for both Kaiser Permanente and Renown and our community.
- [09:48]
B
Some great insights and leadership advice here. Brian, I truly thank you so much for joining me and taking the time to share a little bit more about this partnership. And I look forward to connecting with you again down the line to discuss it again.
- [10:02]
C
That sounds great, Madeline. Thank you.
- [10:03]
B
Thank you, Brian.
- [10:06]
A
At athenahealth, we know your ambulatory practice wants healthier, a healthier business, healthier care teams and healthier patients. But the complexities of modern healthcare tech make it hard for you and your care teams to focus on what matters most. That's where athenahealth can help our AI native all in one solutions. Reduce administrative burdens, streamline billing and payments, and deliver critical insights when clinicians need it most. That means fewer clicks, more time for patients, and stronger bottom lines. Practicing medicine is complex, but running a practice can be that much simpler with Athenahealth. See how simpler is healthier@athenahealth.com.