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Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Expanding Maternal Care Access with Partum Health with Meghan Doyle
00:17:57
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- [00:02]
A
Every year, Becker's annual meeting brings healthcare leaders together to unpack the most pressing issues facing the industry. And every year, those conversations shift in profound and unexpected ways. This April, more than 3,500 healthcare executives will return to Chicago for Becker's 16th annual meeting. 795 elite speakers will offer new lessons, new case studies, and predictions about what comes next. Join us April 13th through the 16th. For the agenda and event details, visit BeckersHospitalReview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right.
- [00:38]
B
This is Laura Deardle with the Beckers Healthcare Podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Megan Doyle, Chief Executive Officer at Partum Health. Megan, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
- [00:48]
C
Excited to be here, Laura, thanks so much for having me.
- [00:51]
B
Absolutely. Well, I'm excited for our conversation and you know, I think there's a lot happening in the healthcare space and so it'll be great to learn a little bit more about pardum health and how you're thinking about the future. But before we dive in, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and the organization?
- [01:04]
C
Happy to, yeah. So Partum Health is a maternal and family care organization and our focus is really uniquely on complementing the care that most families receive from their OB and midwife with a range of specialty support that we know really helps improve outcomes and creates a better patient experience. And so that includes areas that are common gaps in the maternal and family care experience, including behavioral health support, lactation, nutrition, physical therapy, and also non clinical care in the form of birth and postpartum doula support. We are definitely an organization that believes in blending the best of technology with in person care. And so our model is hybrid. We do a mix of virtual and in person support and kind of wrap everything with digital care navigation to help make sure patients really are having that frictionless experience and getting to access both preventive and early intervention support in the areas that we focus on. And you also asked a little bit about my background. So I've spent my career largely on the business side of healthcare, did a lot of work with payer provider and health services organizations, a lot of that during my time at Boston Consulting Group. And then importantly, I'm also a mom of two and so it was really that experience of starting my own family that helped me identify the opportunity to really better serve women and their families when it comes to taking care of their whole mental, emotional and physical health.
- [02:47]
B
I love that that's such a needed service and opportunities for women, mothers and families in order to have healthy and growing, you know, within their own families. And so that's great to hear. I'm curious, can you start off by talking a little bit about an initiative that you've led in the last year? What did you do and what were the results?
- [03:09]
C
Yeah, 2025 was a really big year for partum. We historically had been serving a mix of patients across different commercially insured members. And then last year was our first foray into serving patients with Medicaid. So that expansion was really fueled by some of the regulatory changes that are happening in maternal care. We've now moved over the last few years from just a couple of states, particularly providing Medicaid coverage for doula care, to now more than 20 states where this is becoming really part of the expected and covered care that families can receive as they go through their pregnancy and postpartum. So for us, that was a really important opportunity to move further in the direction of the mission of the organization, which is really to elevate the standard of care for every woman and family, no matter where they live or who pays for their health insurance, so that we're delivering a more consistent kind of gold standard maternal care experience. So for us, that's meant being one of the first providers in our home state of Illinois to have, you know, a large and growing number of doulas who are providing care really in partnership with MCOs. And we're contracted with all the major MCOs here in Illinois. And just the effort to really bring on both the workforce and this is a brand new provider type for a lot of Medicaid plans. Which means there's a lot of learning as you go through all of the, you know, various pieces of credentialing and contracting and of course, care delivery as well. So this has been a huge part of our last year, is really getting that entire service line up and running to serve a segment of the population that not only needs and deserves this support, but has also shown in a lot of research to really benefit in a differentially positive way from getting that non clinical care from trained doulas during their pregnancy, their labor and delivery and their postpartum.
- [05:26]
B
Got it. That makes a lot of sense and is, you know, helpful to understand some of the actions you're being taken, especially given. I know there's a lot of changes in the healthcare environment around, you know, healthcare and healthcare delivery and access and insurance and especially in the Medicaid population. So that's helpful to see how you're able to work with them. Looking ahead, what do you see as being some of the big priorities and headwinds you're focused on for 2026?
- [05:53]
C
Yeah, you know, like you said, there's a constant ebb and flow and sea of change happening in healthcare. So we very much are, you know, paying attention to both the regulatory environment as well as, you know, practically what's happening on, on the ground in the markets where we're serving patients. For us, we particularly following this expansion to begin serving Medicaid in addition to a commercially insured population, we, we are forging really exciting partnerships with health systems that are allowing their patients to really experience more of an end to end model of care that blends what they might be getting in clinic and in the hospital with the type of support that they might be receiving from an organization like Pardum virtually in home, you know, outside the four walls of the clinic. So we have a couple of partnerships that we were working on in 2025 that we are, we haven't yet announced. So stay tuned for the, the exact models and the names. But there's really innovative things coming to market. I think the foundation for that is, you know, whether you're running an ob GYN service line and you know, seeing the need of your patients or you're more in the digital virtual care environment, you know, we all see there's such a need to really step up the level of support that patients have access to and have access to through their insurance. So it's really exciting. We're going to be bringing what we call kind of an embedded model of care in partnership with health systems so that there's a lot more continuity between what patients are getting in their communities, in their homes, alongside that traditional care that they are getting, you know, inside a labor and delivery unit. So for us, that's one of the big opportunities that we're very focused on for 2026. You also asked about headwinds and I think, you know, we can't talk about women's health without bringing up some of the challenges that persist when it comes to reimbursement in the space. You know, there's been really, really helpful research in the last couple of years that's shown a lot of the starting point for reimbursement, know, for women's health procedures, even relative to a similar procedure for men. We, we tend to be reimbursing at lower rates. We see service lines where we're treating women, you know, as a result, often having more financial constraints. And so one of the things that, you know, we're really focused on is ensuring that the care we're providing is absolutely demonstrating value to the patient in terms of those improved outcomes and, and also thinking both about cost as well as continuing to really, you know, fight for, improve the value for more equitable reimbursement in the field. So for us that's probably both, you know, a big part of the opportunity. And also we recognize that we're, we're starting from a little bit of a disadvantage when it comes to the reimbursement for a lot of women's health procedures and services relative to, to men's or to other areas, service line areas where women's health often has to kind of get creative with how we're funding and how we're demonstrating value in terms of cost reduction too. So Those are our two big priorities for 26 is really focusing on deepening those health system partnerships and the innovative care that we're able to provide in partnership with our larger health systems, health system partners. And then also being mindful of those reimbursement challenges.
- [09:40]
B
I love that. That's so helpful to understand how you're thinking about things. And certainly, you know, having those types of priorities is so important, especially as you get more into thinking about value, thinking about payment. Every dollar is critical in healthcare and very, very precious. And so that's really cool to see. And think about how you're bringing together both, you know, the current seeing people in person, seeing people digitally, and really opening up and broadening those access points. What do you think will be the hardest thing you'll have to do in the coming year?
- [10:16]
C
Yeah, it's a great question. And building on what I mentioned before, you know, one of the key areas of growth and expansion for us has been focusing on serving women and families with non clinical support from birth and postpartum doulas. And it's a really exciting opportunity to be kind of at the forefront of that adoption. A new provider type, a new form of reimbursement that's coming online for both patients with Medicaid as well as in many states, families with commercial insurance are, are now will have access as legislation is being passed to ensure that, you know, doula care kind of falls under that umbrella of covered, covered support. The challenging part is that it is a part of the healthcare ecosystem that really doesn't have the same type of infrastructure as many other provider types. And so for us, part of the challenge is being able to build that infrastructure. So bringing new provider types that don't have the same kind of training credentials we have states Standing up individual approaches to credentialing these providers in different states. And so it's this dual challenge of being able to both serve patients, to be in market, delivering care and kind of building and navigating the infrastructure needs for an entirely new part of the workforce and doing that in parallel. So we're always thinking about both how do we set up the long term needs for our patients and knowing that we have a huge opportunity to continue to build the supply as well as to build the technology, the support, the administrative excellence that is needed to really integrate a more holistic approach to maternal care with serving patients who need and deserve that help. Today, that's probably our big challenge for this year is how do we balance those two things and keep them moving in concert together?
- [12:22]
B
Absolutely. I love that. And definitely curious, from your perspective, when you look at those two challenges and think about patients and the infrastructure needs from the healthcare establishment, is there anything new or different that you're going to try in the next 12, 24 months or so to continue to meet the needs and the demands of the market?
- [12:46]
C
Yeah, it's interesting. I think this is an area where we have a lot of opportunity to really rapidly test and learn. And a big part of that for us is to develop and deploy new care models. So that means what has historically been patients very much driving and saying, okay, my friend told me that I need to worry about and think about my pelvic floor and okay, I scored high on this screening, I'm going to go find care. It's really about how to help patients, patients navigate that in a more proactive fashion and to build a care model that kind of anticipates those needs from a patient rather than waiting for them to raise their hand or be in a crisis moment when they're seeking that support. And so for us, that's the thing we're continually innovating on is how do we both educate patients, make them aware and also build kind of expectations or routines around care that align and, you know, allow us to be sustainable financially while getting patients this proactive support that they need. So some of the things that we're thinking about on, on that patient experience side is whether we can, for example, standardize more proactive, even very brief engagement with patients to be able to introduce them to kind of the 101 of perinatal mental health as an example, rather than it being solely relied on needing a pull when somebody has a diagnosis, it's really how do we design technology and patient engagement and communication such that we're enabling them to take a much more proactive approach to their care. And that's one of the really exciting things that we see coming out of our partnerships with health systems is they're really keen to make sure that every patient knows about and has access to the support services that we know can make a really meaningful difference in their end outcomes by helping them reduce complications, avoid injury, and lingering health outcomes that can really not only impact the immediate postpartum period, but really have an impact on a woman and her family for years to come.
- [15:10]
B
Absolutely. I love that. I think that is so helpful to hear about it, know those things are in the works. And, you know, that postpartum period is so critical for so many families now. Anything else you'd like to talk about before we wrap up here? In terms of growth, where are some of the other opportunities that you're seeing and ways that the organization is looking to expand?
- [15:31]
C
Yeah, I think the really exciting part of what I mentioned before about the way that we're working hand in hand with health systems, with inpatient units, you know, that is a. A key focus for us going forward because it allows us to really not just address the needs of patients who, you know, happen to find us, but also to create a much more standard experience for patients in some of these areas where they may not have awareness around, you know, what is my pelvic floor? Why should I see a pt? Or just the common occurrence that is that, you know, perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, how commonly they occur, and therefore why, you know, preventive therapy might be of benefit for them. So for us, we, we are really focused in the coming year on deepening those relationships, on building new partnerships. And it's something actually, even at the, you know, last Becker's event that we were at, we heard so much openness and excitement from health system partners who are also recognizing there's so much opportunity to engage with patients outside the four walls of their clinics, of their hospital and really looking for innovative ways that they can partner with startups, with health tech organizations that are really innovative and complementary to that traditional care system. So for us, that's a big focus in the coming year is really finding more of those partners who want to bring that really innovative experience to women and families. And they recognize the importance of this health care consumer, this health care decision maker, and want to be delivering that, that kind of gold standard around this really important moment of building their family, of, you know, starting to decide, okay, this is where we're going to go for care. So that's probably for us. You know, the biggest opportunity that we see is, is just taking this type of support to more patients and doing that in a way that really works hand in hand with the care that they're already receiving, you know, from systems on the ground.
- [17:42]
B
I love that. Thank you, Megan, so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been such a fantastic and informative discussion, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
- [17:51]
C
Wonderful. Thanks so much, Laura.