← Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Welcome everybody to Becker's Healthcare Podcast. I'm Rich Zaim, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Innovation Officer at UC Health in Colorado. Today's prescribing journey is more complex than ever with health systems navigating rising costs, fragmented data, growing expectations for transparency from both providers and patients, not to mention the crushing administrative and regulatory burden. Too often, the breakdown between prescribing and prescription fulfillment creates friction that impacts access, adherence, provider satisfaction, pharmacy performance and patient outcomes. In today's conversation, we'll explore where those breakdowns most often occur and how trusted real time data, intelligence and connected workflows can support more confident prescribing decisions, improve patient access and affordability, and strengthen health system pharmacy strategy. Josh I'm joined today by Josh Wiener, former CEO of Dosebot and current CEO of Entera Health, as well as Kyle Kaiser, former CEO of Arrive Health and current Board member and Senior Advisor to Entera Health. Both bring deep experience across E prescribing pharmacy benefit visibility and point of care clinical decision support. Josh, Kyle, it's a pleasure to be speaking with you today on behalf of Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
- [01:25]
B
Great to be here.
- [01:25]
C
Thanks for having us. Rich.
- [01:27]
A
Before we dive in, tell me a little bit about Entera Health.
- [01:29]
C
Today's a big day for you. It is.
- [01:32]
B
It's a huge day. We are now forming a brand new organization that is built on decades of experience on all these topics that we'll explore today. Our company is Enterra Health. It's the combination of Arrive Health and Dose Spot and we are putting these two organizations together in pursuit of one platform for medication affordability and access.
- [02:12]
C
I think the important point too that we're bringing together is kind of the best of breed in both companies coming together is that we took what Dosebot had established as a market leadership around affordability content around patient capabilities and E prescribing capabilities and medical benefit eligibility. And we're now bringing that together with our Arrive Health's market leadership in in real time benefit and EPA and the network reach that that provides. And those two things together create really a paradigm shifting opportunity for the combined platform.
- [02:53]
A
So as a provider who prescribes and a patient who gets prescriptions, thank you in advance for the incredible work you're going to be doing.
- [03:00]
C
It sounds exciting.
- [03:02]
A
So based on your experience, where do you see the most common breakdowns between a provider prescribing and a patient getting the medication? How do you think those gaps impact health system performance and maybe even patient trust?
- [03:18]
C
You know, this is, it's going to be a little Bit like quoting the song lyrics of your favorite songwriter to your favorite songwriter answering this question to you, Rich. But the problem still exists that providers have limited visibility to price at the point of care. And I think where we've advanced that work over the last 10 years as riveting is that, you know, insurance pricing is much more visible and capable and can be delivered in a quality, high quality way for providers. That's meaningful decision support now. But the way you pay for medications is not limited to just insurance pricing anymore. So being able to extend the capabilities at the point of care to include things that are more representative of what the patient faces is part of the goal is how do you turn decision support not just from a real time benefit perspective. So, meaning how do we generate an insurance price but now how do you make real time benefit look like a real patient experience in all the ways you could pay and what all those pharmacy options could be and do it in a way that is. Here's where I'm quoting my favorite songwriter. Fewer clicks, not more clicks. Easier, not harder.
- [04:24]
B
And right every time, sort of continuing on that scene.
- [04:28]
A
What role can health systems play in medication affordability and access?
- [04:36]
B
We see a big opportunity grounding ourselves in what is the patient experience that you all as health system leaders are delivering or want to deliver in the future. And so you can provide patients with the financial transparency, you can provide patients on their mobile device with an option to get the med delivered or picked up how and where they, they want to. And there's a, a continuity that's possible there. That's why health systems are so incredible at the work that they do. It's to provide continuous care from A to Z and back to A again. And so we want to give you and patient, give everybody in the system the data that they need to get the meds that they, that they need. Affordability is, is one of the biggest barriers and we can, we can address that from an experience perspective.
- [05:40]
C
Yeah. The reality is that the, the burden often falls on the provider either way and, or the provider organization either way. Because the first call the patients want to make when they have questions about their meds is to their provider because that's where they've established trust and that's where the most trust resides in the value chain. And so providers are going to be answering those questions one way or another from patients. Our goal is to give them the tools and the right data to make sure that they can do that efficiently. They can do it in ways that help improve continuity of care for the health system overall because that's where, you know, finding the right pharmacy and you know, more often than not that's going to be the health systems pharmacy. If we're putting the right tools in place, is part of the goal is how do you start to turn that, what's today an administrative burden, into a meaningful business opportunity for the health system and better patient outcomes.
- [06:32]
A
So let's talk a little bit about transparency to patients and putting patients at the center of this conversation. So if I'm a patient and you're prescribing for me, I, I need to know how much it's going to cost me. But I also need to know that the prescription and the way it's being prescribed and where it's being prescribed is in my best interest. What type of fidelity will you have to ensure that?
- [07:00]
B
But in the spirit of reducing clicks and making the whole, often the best technology is the technology that we can't see. And I think that's the promise of some of these agentic AI prototypes, is that we're not even engaging in the technology and that flies in the face of an addictive gamification app. So I could see the argument both ways.
- [07:30]
C
Rich. Yeah, I think it's, I almost want to expand the definition to incentives. Right. Because when you think about gamification, the folks who use gamified tools are not the ones that you need to engage with to drive down health care costs and improve outcomes. You know, that's like the 8020 rule and you're going to engage with the least sick and the least in need and to drive a better outcome, you've got to engage with the folks that aren't ever going to engage with gamify tool. And what I think is exciting about the pharma value chain generally is formularies. Cost complexity is its own form of gamification. And so how do we bring those collective incentives to bear for the most in need patient population? Because that's where you can drive a big impact on cost and complexity.
- [08:18]
A
So probably one of the most brilliant minds in healthcare innovation, three of us know, and most of the people listening will have heard of Kimberly Muller, who's the Vice chancellor for innovation and Biotechnology at the University of Colorado, is frequently quoted as saying that healthcare is over innovated and under transformed. What are your thoughts?
- [08:40]
C
I, as you know, strongly agree with that perspective. And part of it is because the real work is not flashy. The real work is not high sizzle technology. Often it's ditch digging, it's how do you build the right connectivity to the right workflows to meet the right users where they are both patients, providers and care teams. And that's, that's been a lot of the work of, of both of our organizations over the last many years. And I think the mentality, you know, that sort of blue collar mentality of willing to roll your sleeves up and do the work to integrate in the right places and to get the right data integrations and to get to the right patients in the right ways is absolutely the approach. Because that's what it takes for transformation, right, Is to actually do the unglamorous parts of connecting these legacy systems into new capabilities and driving a different outcome.
- [09:39]
A
So, Kyle, Josh, as two leaders in healthcare technology and as a provider, can I get you to commit on the record that Entera Health will be easier, not harder. Path of least resistance, fewer clicks, not more clicks. And bulletproof.
- [09:57]
B
Right. I hereby make that commitment considering we
- [10:01]
C
were born out of the care Innovation center there on the Anschutz campus and that was the bible. That's always the aspiration.
- [10:10]
A
Awesome. Well, Josh, Kyle, thank you both for your time today. I'm excited to see what Arrive Health and Dosebot do together as intera Health.
- [10:19]
B
Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. Take care of.