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Deanna Shimota 00:00:05 Welcome to The HR Tech Spotlight podcast. I'm Deanna Shimota, CEO of GrowthMode Marketing. The HR technology market is crowded, and we know it can be hard to find the best software solutions for your business in the sea of sameness. On this podcast, we shine a spotlight on some of the best up-and-coming technology options out there. Check it out if you are interested in learning about new, innovative solutions available in the market. And if you are with an HR tech company and interested in being considered for a guest spot, stay tuned for details at the end of the show. Hello and welcome to another episode of The HR Tech Spotlight. This time my guest is Laura Cave, Chief Marketing Officer at Paytient. Paytient is a healthcare technology platform that offers solutions to help make healthcare more affordable for employees. They are the creator and leading provider of health payment accounts. Employers offering this benefit provide employees a small, interest-free line of credit they can use to pay the out-of-pocket costs of health care for their whole family, including pets.
Deanna Shimota 00:01:15 Welcome to the show, Laura, and thanks for joining me to talk about patient.
Laura Cave 00:01:19 Hi there. Thank you so much for having me.
Deanna Shimota 00:01:22 So you've listened to the podcast before. My first question is always tell us about your background in the HR tech space.
Laura Cave 00:01:29 Absolutely. So I would say I started in tech, got to healthcare and then got to HR. So I'll connect those dots for you. I started actually in digital media back in 2006. I worked for the not for seven years. They were a really early independent media company, obsessed with weddings that were very early in building communities online and just creating a brand that women were just absolutely obsessed with as they planned their weddings and men too, and had a ton of amazing experience there in the early days. When I started there, the iPhone hadn't even been invented yet, so I'm dating myself, but I just want to give that context. So after that, I landed in health care on a fluke. I had been freelancing and ended up getting hired as a temporary inside sales representative for Oscar Health insurance, and my job was to help people choose their marketplace plan during the second Obamacare open enrollment ever.
Laura Cave 00:02:35 This was in the 2014 2015 season, and I just was heartbroken. And at the same time, in love with this industry. It was super challenging to hear consumers talking about their health care needs and trying to help them understand how they could be matched with the right health plan. So being a licensed broker was my introduction to the industry, and from there I raised my hand and said, can I please have a marketing job here? Because I'm a marketer and I think this is the most important thing I could be working on. It's one of the biggest challenges facing our generation is how we will afford and pay for health care and take care of ourselves and our families. And so that has really fueled me for the last ten years working at various health tech startups. I was the first marketing hire at K health, as well as Ansel Health, with solutions in the telemedicine space, with machine learning, and in the ancillary space with a supplemental benefit better designed for today's high deductible health plans. I joined patient two and a half years ago to help them build towards this mission of helping more Americans more easily access and afford health care, and it's a solution I'm really proud of and really excited about.
Laura Cave 00:03:54 So I'm excited to be here to talk about it today.
Deanna Shimota 00:03:57 Let's talk a bit more about what patient Actually does. I know not all employers and HR leaders may know what a health payment account is. The company actually created that, and now it's a benefit that can be offered to employees.
Laura Cave 00:04:13 That's right. I'll dig into what the product does. But then I hope we'll get a chance to talk about like why it does that? Because I think that's where the insight really comes from. So patient itself is very simple. It's a visa card that has a line of credit on it. It's sponsored by the employer or the health plan. And we work with a huge range of enterprise and business clients. We have over 6000 partners. That includes major payers like Centene, anthem, Cigna, as well as large employers like Hyatt, Advantage Solutions and Donnelly. But we also work with thousands of smaller businesses and innovative health plan providers like gravy. Pay is actually patient behind the scenes. So there's a lot of places that were being plugged into the commercial markets.
Laura Cave 00:05:04 And the reason for that is because it turns out when you apply, when you pair a health payment account, which is the name that we gave to our product because there's nothing else like it. When you pair that with a health plan of any kind, it creates a more equitable process by which people can access care from day one of their plan. So the way that you would use your health payment account is you would come through the onboarding experience in the app takes about two minutes. There's no credit check. We do ask a simple ability to repay assessment. We ask you about your income and your monthly expenses, just to ensure that you could afford a minimum payment that makes this product compliant with all federal lending regulations. And from there, you'll be issued card a card number as long as you're approved immediately. So you have those dollars. And we do hear of people activating their benefit. They can activate at any time of year, not just during open enrollment. They can activate it at the doctor's office when they realize they need help and they want to use this benefit.
Laura Cave 00:06:07 So once that's activated, you have a virtual card. A physical visa card does follow in the mail 7 to 10 days later, and you can use that to pay for any out-of-pocket spending in approved spending categories. So most employers authorize the full suite, which is medical, which includes mental health, pharmacy, the dental, vision and veterinary expenses, so you can take care of everyone's health care needs in your family, including the fur babies, which we find a ton of utilization happens there because we want to take care of our pets. And we know that even with pet insurance, you still have an upfront payment. And whether it's that payment or anything related to the health care needs for yourself or your loved ones, those unexpected out-of-pocket expenses can be really hard on the budget, and this creates a simple way for you to have a payment solution in your wallet at all times that is ready if you need to seek care. And what we find is that by embedding a solution like this with the consumer, they're more proactive to seek care and it changes how they think about their health benefit.
Laura Cave 00:07:21 It changes how they feel about their employer. And I can get into more of that in a moment. But the other thing that's helpful about this is that there are, no interest and no fees on the repayment process. So for every transaction you take your patient card, you swipe it at the doctor's office or at the vet, and it prompts you, how would you like to repay this balance? And let's say it was $100. You could choose if you wanted it to be four payments out of $25, or ten payments of $10. It's completely up to you. You have up to 12 months to pay it off. And for employer clients, this repayment schedule can be payroll linked. And what that does is it allows you to select your repayment, and those amounts are automatically withheld from future paychecks. So you don't have to think about it. It just happens. It's like it just makes bills disappear. And so it has something like a 90 NPS score, which is super, super high. It's higher than Amazon.
Laura Cave 00:08:24 And on Trustpilot we have something like 4.9 stars. People just really love the ease of using this because it works like a debit card or credit card. It just it's a payment method. It just works. And then they have that total flexibility to pay back that amount on their own schedule, on their own timeline, which gives them control and dignity and confidence in an area that had previously been scary and uncertain. So I'll pause there. Does that make sense? Is there anything I missed or that you're wondering about?
Deanna Shimota 00:08:56 Yeah, I mean, that makes total sense. And I can see where this is a real value to employees because quite frankly, health care is expensive. And even when you have what's considered a good insurance plan, I can tell you, I've sat around with my friends and we're all over the age where we have to get colonoscopies, and we've had conversations like, I don't want to schedule it. The out of pocket for me is going to be $1,500. And so I think for some people that's terrifying, that if I get basic medical care that I need to insure I'm healthy, it's going to be impossible to pay for even though I have insurance.
Deanna Shimota 00:09:30 Right?
Laura Cave 00:09:31 That's right people. It's endemic to health care that you don't always know what something's going to cost beforehand, because until you're working with a provider, you might not know what you have or what treatment is even required. And the provider doesn't know until they examine you, or they do a test, or you get a lab back with results. It's a journey that we're all on together, and so we need a payment solution that can be flexible to catch and shield us from the stress of these sort of unknowable expenses. It's there, unknowable up front, and that's really unique. There's really no other sort of buying or consumer category that functions this way. Maybe going to get your car work done at the garage. But but we need a professional physician to work with us so that we know what's necessary. And, and that's just it's always going to be that way. We're making really important strides in getting price transparency to consumers. And that's a requirement now that the payers disclose their prices. But it's still really tricky to understand.
Laura Cave 00:10:39 And we I heard a really poignant story from one of our employer clients. They heard from their staff. I would hesitate to take my kids for care, because I didn't want to be standing at the counter and not be able to pay what they were asking me to pay in front of my children. And so having the patient card is allowing them to be proactive, more proactive about their family's health care. With the confidence to know whatever it is, I can pay for it, and then I can manage that expense in a way that works for my budget.
Deanna Shimota 00:11:12 Yeah. So I know before we hit record, you and I were talking about how patient came to be. Tell us a little bit about the background or the, you know, origin stories of the company.
Laura Cave 00:11:22 Absolutely. So patient was founded in April of 2018 by Brian Worley, our CEO and founder. He spent the past 15 years as a hospital administrator, and he was by trade. He's a systems engineer, so he's the kind of person that is brilliant at thinking about process and and methods and how do all these pieces work together.
Laura Cave 00:11:48 And so as he was looking at the health system that he was a part of, he saw that the billing department was actually bigger than the surgery department. so there were spending just as much time, energy, resource and expertise on collecting the money owed to them as they were actually helping people get healthy. And he also saw firsthand the implications of unfunded care, people who knew that they were getting perhaps life saving surgery, but they were going to end up with a really big bill. And many of those people had insurance. And we know that there are a lot of folks in our country who are insured but effectively underinsured. And that's become more and more the case because health care costs have grown so dramatically that employers are doing Herculean work to attempt to provide coverage and really safety from the worst of those health care costs. But that has meant that deductibles have risen to where a lot of the insured patients, the employees, are finding themselves having to pay out of pocket or substantial cost sharing for the everyday care needs that those routine care needs that you were talking about.
Laura Cave 00:13:06 We're the ones paying for that, but we don't have the tools to do it. And so there's two trends that we see. One is deductible avoidance. So people try to get the health plan that gives them the most certainty of affordability. And often that means that they're paying a lot in premiums. And so is the employer because they're just afraid to have a higher deductible because they're not sure if they'll be able to afford the care that they need when they need it. And so that fear causes them to buy more expensive health insurance. And we're all paying for that. And then the second thing that happens is that we see people avoiding care altogether. So we commissioned some research last year from a really reputable research firm called Non-fiction. And they found that amongst workplace insured Americans, something like 40% are deferring care because of cost. So they're not going to get that colonoscopy or that diagnostic mammogram. And they're dealing with pain and uncertainty and anxiety that is impacting the workplace. And so we see lower productivity, more absences and indeed turnover because people have to feel that they have to go work somewhere where they have quote unquote, better benefits, more certainty of affordability for health care, and patient is designed to step in and give people the courage to embrace a lower premium, but perhaps a slightly higher deductible, knowing that they have a plan for how they're going to be able to cover those out-of-pocket expenses.
Laura Cave 00:14:47 And then, as a result, they're confident to go seek care when it's needed. And it's generally for those everyday care expenses that really are not so unaffordable if you have a little bit of flexibility about how you can work that cost into your budget.
Deanna Shimota 00:15:05 The type of companies are the.
Deanna Shimota 00:15:06 Perfect fit for patient.
Laura Cave 00:15:09 That's a great question. We struggle with that a little bit because it works for a lot of different companies. I mentioned earlier that we have some large companies that work with us, like Hyatt, in the hospitality space, but what's interesting about Hyatt is that they have corporate staff, but they also have housekeeping and culinary arts and event management and so many different types of employees. And so we do see a lot in education, in manufacturing, in professional services. It's really surprising that actually we can't make assumptions about who is able to afford unexpected health costs. We find that there are quite a lot of people who activate and use the card who are in higher income brackets, because perhaps they need the flexibility.
Laura Cave 00:16:00 There are also a lot of folks who are allowing their HSA dollars to grow so they can save them for retirement, and they're using the patient card to pay health care costs out of this year's paychecks in a way that preserves their savings. That's a pretty smart personal finance strategy. And then, of course, there are others who use it because they don't have another way to access care. And so that's been great, actually, for us to see really robust participation in the program because it works for so many different health care needs and so many different kinds of people for different reasons. And yeah, I would say anybody who is facing challenges in their rate renewal for their health benefit could be interested in using patient. And also anybody who's invested in solutions that improve population health management. So schools are and municipalities are a good example there where they don't have a lot of turnover. Their benefits are really important part of the compensation package, and they know that if they invest in people being able to get the care that they need today, that will reduce their preventable sort of high cost claims down the road, because if they've been medication adherent, if they've gone to physical therapy and they got those routine care services, they're going to be healthier a few years from now than they would be if they put all of that off.
Laura Cave 00:17:25 Those are a couple of things that make a group a really good candidate for us.
Deanna Shimota 00:17:30 And talking about those things leads really well into my next question, which is really, what impact have organizations that have implemented patients seen?
Laura Cave 00:17:40 Yeah. So it really depends on the employer strategy. And there are different ways to put patient in place depending on your goals. But I will share. We do see a reduction in turnover, something like 23%. Or is the number of reduced turnover that we see amongst people who have the patient card that have activated it, they don't have to have used the card, which is really interesting because you could say, oh, if someone is using the patient card, they're accessing care and they're using the health benefit. So patient you can't claim the reduced turnover for yours as an outcome of your program. But we would say, would they be using the health benefit to get access to care if 40% had previously been deferring it? Not necessarily. And it's interesting that when we look at just on a card activated basis, they don't have to have used it.
Laura Cave 00:18:32 They've got peace of mind. And in fact, people with a card, the patient card say that they're 50, 50% of them say that they're a lot more likely to keep their current job, which I think is just speaking to the value that this adds to the health benefit overall. The other thing that we see is cost savings in the near term through voluntary plan migration. We're working on getting a higher level, more like A statistical stat around this. It's a little tricky to measure because every group is different year to year in their benefit renewal. But anecdotally, we have seen clients have something like 40% more people enroll in the high deductible health plan with patients paired alongside it, because the deductible turns out to be a lot less scary. If you have a plan and you're confident that you can seek care when you need to, and patient provides that. It's interesting when you look at it's common knowledge that they're used primarily, most happily anyway, by higher income people because they like the lower premiums and they think I can afford it if I need to pay towards this deductible.
Laura Cave 00:19:41 So it can't be that the deductible is bad. If the high income people actively choose it, it's that they have the luxury of a pile of money that gives them the confidence to do what patient does is it makes up for that lack of confidence and that lack of that pile of money that most of us don't have sitting around And gives you dollars that are just ready to spend when you need to spend them, and then you can pay that back on your own time. And the effect is the same. And that's why patient is such a great equalizer. The health equity happens on day one. And for groups that are prioritizing investments in that patient is a great solution because it doesn't matter what your health care need is, whether that's dental or you need new eyeglasses or you need a surgery or whatever else. There are a lot of different applications. So it works really widely across the population.
Deanna Shimota 00:20:29 And what is the future vision for patient?
Laura Cave 00:20:33 So that's an it's an interesting time for you to ask me that question.
Laura Cave 00:20:37 In 2022 with the Inflation Reduction Act, there was a program that was introduced called the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan. And we have been able to partner with a few major PBMs and plan sponsors to actually operationalize that program, which is going live in about two weeks for people to sign up for the 2025 Medicare plan year. And what that will mean is that seniors and Medicare, other Medicare beneficiaries, will be able to spread their pharmacy costs over the balance of the year, instead of paying for all of it up front. And because Medicare beneficiaries have such a high cost pharmacy needs, this is going to be really powerful for helping them access and afford medication, and having that medication adherence that can improve their longevity and keep them out of the hospital and all the rest. And we really see that as a sign that smoothing costs over time, as an approach to affordability is having its day as an idea that this solution belongs in every part of health insurance in the United States, we are lucky enough to be able to pair the health payment account with 6000 employer health plans.
Laura Cave 00:21:53 With ACA plans in now 20 states in 2025 across three major players, and we are working with Cigna Dental in the commercial group space. And then we've also got now all of this, this Medicare business that is allowing us to support the a similar program. It's not the health payment account, it's not the card solution. It's a government program that's available to everyone. But we really see it as emerging as a standard of care that every health plan needs to have with it. A tool that builds in affordability to access care from day one of the plan that doesn't require you to save in an HSA or to contribute to an FSA, but that those dollars are ready and we are proving that you can do that, and that those applications can work across all the different kinds of ways that Americans are insured. And yeah, the future vision is to be able to ensure that every American can access care without fear of financial burden from the first day of their coverage, and that we can continue to find more and more ways to make that access and affordability work for people in this country.
Deanna Shimota 00:23:09 That's awesome. As we close this conversation, Laura, what final thoughts do you want to leave the audience with?
Laura Cave 00:23:16 I just I think I just want to ask as as HR leaders to think differently. I know that it's a risk to propose a new solution or to embrace a new cost. That wasn't a budgeted line item in the past. But if we think about the experience, there's an opportunity here to improve the access to care and the feeling of accessing care for the people that are in your care. And what I just want to close on is this really interesting finding. We did a survey of the users of our product who are from employer groups, and they told us we asked a question at the very end of the survey that said, what does it mean to you that your employer has offered patient as a benefit? And it was a completely open right in your answer kind of question. And I expected to hear people say it means a lot to me and it means I can access care. It means I can afford to go to the doctor or get my son's asthma medication.
Laura Cave 00:24:17 And we hear those kinds of things all the time. But in this particular survey, 20% of the respondents wrote in some version of the answer, it means that my employer cares about me. It means my employer cares about my health insurance, that they care about my health, that they care about my family, that they care about whether or not I can actually get the care I need. And that's so powerful to people. It just it overwhelms me reading the answers. And so we share that often with employers, because it's about so much more than the dollars and cents of the benefit program. It's about the social contract, right? That if I work for you, I can take care of my family and I'm going to be okay. And patient is really demonstrably improving that in an environment where it's been really hard to deliver that feeling and keep your costs under control. And we just so empathize with that. And we want you to know that there's a solution that can change how your employees feel about their health benefits.
Deanna Shimota 00:25:17 Excellent. So where can our listeners go to learn more about patient.
Laura Cave 00:25:21 Absolutely. So you can go to our website. Patient. Com there's a page that is specifically for employers. You can check out case studies. You can download some our Health impact report that talks more about some of the results that I was speaking about earlier. You can also go to patient.com/study. If you'd like to download the nonfiction report. That's totally free and available for you to take a look at. But yeah, if you fill out the contact form, our team would be happy to talk to you, put together some pricing, and show you what this might look like for your team.
Deanna Shimota 00:25:54 Okay, so I know patient isn't spelled the way people normally the patient is. That's why we will put the links in the show notes for those people that are listening. So you can find that website. And so I just got to say thanks so much for that information, Laura, and thank you for coming on the Air Tech Spotlight today.
Laura Cave 00:26:12 Thank you so much for having me.
Deanna Shimota 00:26:18 Thanks for listening to this episode of The HR Tech Spotlight podcast, where we showcase some of the best up-and-coming HR technology options in the market. If you are an HR tech company leader who would like to be considered for a guest spot on this program, please contact me via GrowthModeMarketing.com or reach out to me, Deanna Shimota, on LinkedIn. And if you found this show informative, subscribe, connect with us on social media and leave a review. This is Deanna with GrowthMode Marketing signing off. Thanks for listening. We hope you'll tune in again next time.