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This is Laura Dirdo with the Becker's
Healthcare podcast.
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Ananya
Banerjee,
chief commercial officer at Aledade. Ananya, it's a
pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
Alright. Thank you so much, for inviting me
to the podcast.
Well, Ananya, I'm really excited to have you
here. I know it's going to be a
great conversation,
and it'll be,
fantastic to spotlight some of the things that
you're doing and validate. But before we dive
into our broader conversation, can you tell us
a little bit more about yourself and the
background?
Absolutely. Not a Sophie. I wanna thank you
for having me on your podcast.
A little bit about myself. I'm Ananya Banerjee.
I'm Aladate's chief commercial officer. I've been with
Aladate for about 2 years now.
I've tried to Allocate. I've been,
on both the pair as well as the
provider side.
Just wanted to share a little bit about
Allocate for those who might not be familiar.
Allocate is the country's largest network of PCPs.
We have presence in over 45 states in
DC.
We serve around 2 and a half 1000000
patients
across the 45 states in DC.
That's great to hear. And, you know, really,
powerful,
influence that you have on an important community.
Now from your perspective, what are some of
the biggest issues that you're following in health
care today? What's top of mind for you?
Great question.
I think 2024
has been a year of many, many changes.
And while some of the things, you know,
keeping a close eye on the 3 biggest
issues that I'm tracking have probably been
consistent,
across many, many years now. The first is
just access. Right? Like access to quality care,
especially in rural America.
It's been an issue for several decades now,
and I think,
solve, or at least partially solve the
challenges and quality access.
The second issue that, you know, I've been
tracking is around cost of care. Again, that's
been,
something that, you know, multiple stakeholders
are trying to solve for. And I think
for us, one of the advantages that Allerade
has is that we've been doing value based
care across
Medicare Advantage, Medicaid, and commercial
that gives us panel coverage to to truly,
tackle cost of care across multiple
segments and across all age groups of,
patients.
The third thing that I'm tracking is around
physician independence.
It has become
extremely difficult for physicians
to get financial stability with just fee for
service revenue.
So,
part of the what we what we've been
able to help physicians with
is making sure that they also have additional
value based care revenue sources.
And, you know, we now have a track
record where
more than 98,
percent like, 98, 99% of physician practices
have actually been able to get,
a shared savings bonus check.
Wow. That's helpful to know. You know, really
interesting to think about some of the different,
trends in the cost of health care and
especially, as you mentioned, in some of the
rural communities,
making sure you have access to care and
really,
expanding the way that you can connect with
that part typical community.
From your perspective, when you're looking at some
of the things,
that are are coming down the pipe, what
are you most excited about and what makes
you nervous?
Yeah. I think I'll I'll take the most
excited about question first, probably.
What excites me, Laura, is just the the
impact that Amity has been able to create
in the last 10 years. And, you know,
when I think about the future, the the
level of impact we can have for our
patients, for our community, and for our practices.
So one one example I'll give is just
around the strength of SaaS physician network. We
have
over,
1900 practices right now. We work very, very
closely
with about 30 health plans across our 45
states.
And I think, you know, what we've been
able to do is truly be the easy
button for both the practices as well as
theirs to create the level of change and
the level of impact that we are trying
to achieve.
45% of our practices are in medically underserved
areas, which, you know, has been
tremendous,
in terms of the the impact that we
generated
for
the physician groups as well as, you know,
these,
the the patient population that we serve.
You know, it's great to hear and, really,
you know, will be cool to see the
results and, you know, definitely interested in what
you're nervous about as well.
Yeah.
I think what,
makes me nervous is the level of physician
burnout.
You know, it's something,
that truly
worries me because there's so much administrative
burden
that the sessions have to solve for today
that you know a lot of them are
considering leaving the workforce.
What gives me hope, though, is there's so
many people,
you know
companies that are trying to address it.
We at Allerade has been trying to focus
on it and and tackle it in multiple
different ways. Like, our the Allerade app actually,
is able to
hook into a 100 different kinds of EHR.
We have
EHR overlays that, you know, help with easing
some of that burden. We're also extensively using
AI so that the the things that can
be automated and can be, you know, take
taken out of the daily kind of grind
of things to make it easier,
in the long term for physicians.
That's so helpful to know. Like you said,
I know that, clinician burnout
is really a challenge, and so having that
technology to support some of those different initiatives
I could imagine
is really helpful,
and can make a big difference for clinicians.
Now looking ahead, what do you think most
effective healthcare leaders will need in order to
be successful in the next 2 to 3
years, especially considering
some of the challenges that you've already mentioned?
That's a very thoughtful question, Laura. I think,
my vantage point,
we're
all trying to, you know, make health care
better.
You know, we've we've very aligned
in terms of our goals, but we don't
always
go in the same direction.
I think focusing on alignment across different stakeholders
so that we can actually go in the
same direction
would be immensely important.
Alignment in terms of goals, in terms of
incentives, and how we do the work
will help us get more efficient and do
more good. You know, our mission at Allerade
is to do more good for our patients,
for our, physician, for health plans, and for
society in general. And I think the most
efficient way for us to get there is
by driving alignment
across
the different,
you know, partners that we work with.
I love that. And I can imagine, you
know, having that type of, partnership and alignment
focus, you know, is really a great leadership
quality and something that will really serve,
upcoming leaders as well as those who are
established well in the future.
Anania, thank you so much for joining us
on the podcast today. This has been a
really fascinating conversation and I look forward to
talking to you again soon.
Thank you, Laura. It's great to meet you,
and thank you again for inviting me.