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Thanks so much for tuning in today where
we're joined by a special guest. Doctor John
Kim is Alignment Health's chief medical officer for
the company's West Coast Markets.
Doctor Kim, thank you so much for taking
the time to be with us on the
podcast today.
Oh, thank you for having me, Jacob.
Yeah. Likewise. And we have a lot that
we wanna, talk with you about, John. But
before we get started, do you mind telling
us a little bit more about your career
in health care and what it is that
you are doing today at Alignment Health?
Sure. I've,
well, I've always been in the senior space,
since I started my career here in California.
Prior to, I was with another Medicare Advantage
organization where we did things,
similar
to what we do here.
But I've been with Alignment
Alignment Health for now 10 years.
My background is I'm an internist,
focusing
on hospital based medicine. But,
over the years, I've experienced some outpatient
clinic care as well.
Fantastic. So you've been with an align alignment
for a decade now, and the company just
released its annual social threats to aging well
in America
survey
in August.
Can you give us an overview of those
survey findings and and maybe what surprised you
most,
from from this year's
from this year's survey?
Sure. Yeah. This is Jacob. This is our
actually our 3rd year that we've done the
survey.
And
I would say that
well, 1, as far as, any surprises, I
would say that,
from the findings, I I didn't I don't
think we actually found things surprising. I think
it just more confirmed
what we've already
known in alignment,
with the social threats.
But the top three threats that,
our
surveyors respond to were aging in place,
transportation
access,
economic
security
were the top 3. And then,
the others were lack of support, mental health,
loneliness,
cultural, and food insecurity.
And then I would say,
something else to call out is that 9
out of 10 seniors that we surveyed actually,
say they're impacted by one of the social
determinants of health. Pretty pretty alarming, I think.
Yeah. Absolutely. That's a that's an amazing statistic.
What do you think these these answers from
these seniors indicate about
senior health care in America moving forward? It
seems like SDOH is is a huge focus
right now. You mentioned some of the issues
around transportation,
economic issues, food insecurity.
So so what does that spell out for
for us,
in terms of senior health care moving forward?
Well, I I think we have a as
a society, we have a long ways to
go.
When we started alignment, we we knew,
social determinants of health as a barrier. It's
actually a huge barrier. When you look at
the patients that we take care of, they're
not
complex
medical conditions.
They're actually your typical
conditions that a normal PCP and specialist can
take care of, your heart failures, diabetes,
you know, asthma, COPD.
But there
are simple,
conditions that can be managed
complicated by all these social threats.
So
I would say the system today isn't built
to
take care of these social threats. PCPs and
specialists can take care of these conditions fine,
but they're just not built
to be able to tackle
aging in place,
transportation,
and,
economic insecurities,
the loneliness.
And that's where organizations like us were, you
know I think we're at the forefront that
we've thought through all these challenges.
And so we've tailored our
supplemental benefits,
really to support
the social barriers, and then we've also built
built clinical programs
to really support the Freelisk members
that deal with these social barriers.
Absolutely. And it's been really fascinating to to
watch how alignment has evolved throughout the years
and the different products and different offerings you've
you've created for your members. I I remember
covering one story about alignment, in regards to
the Walgreens partnership and and the plan there.
So I think the natural question for you,
doctor Kim, is how is alignment responding
to to these survey results? And maybe not
even just from from this year's survey, but
in in years past, how is a business'
alignment responding to what these seniors are telling
you?
Well, Jacob, we, you know, we listen to
our,
our seniors, number 1. I mean, they're they
make it very clear what what their needs
are, and we
tailor our supplemental benefits to,
really support them. So, you know, if it's
economic and insecurity, it's going through our formulary
pharmacy formulary
and finding where we can make the most
impact
by,
you know, finding the most common medications where
we can, you know, have a a $0
co pay.
It's transportation,
making sure that we have enough transportation
rides for,
the most vulnerable members.
You know, it's funny. I we've had pet,
services for quite some time. And, you know,
every time I bring up pet services to
my colleagues,
they kinda chuckle. But,
you know, I can't tell you how many
times I've personally taken care of patients in
the hospital, seniors
that come in with life threatening conditions. But
they're willing to sign up against medical advice
because they have no one else besides their
loved one, their pet.
So, you know,
we've really listened to our we listened to
our seniors and we, you know, again, we
create try to be creative in how we
come up with our supplemental benefits. And we've
done a really good job leading,
being one of the leaders in in how
we're creative with with our design,
product designs.
And then,
you know, we we built,
one of our clinical programs that we've really,
that I'm really proud of,
which is called Care Anywhere,
is the best way I describe it. It's
a concierge program.
It's concierge services, basically, for the people that
I think really need it. It's not for
the wealthy and the executives, but it's for
the frail and the poor.
And so we really offer that 247
concierge service
to that population. And it's not
clinical. It's some of it's clinical, but it's
actually a multidisciplinary
approach of
social workers and health coaches because we now
again, it's not,
you know, complex medical conditions. It's simple,
medical conditions are complicated by these social threats.
Absolutely. And just to reiterate a point that
you had just made, John, in terms of
listening to seniors and then creating products that
that meet their needs, I think that's been
so evidenced by by the fact of alignments,
major growth over these last few years now
surpassing over a 100,000 members
in total.
But but before we go, John, I I
wanna make sure to offer you the opportunity
to share any parting thoughts with us, final
pieces of advice that you would offer all
the health plan executives listening in.
Any any final key takeaways you'd like to
share with them?
I think for the,
our competitors, the health care executives,
you know, it's listen listen to your your
patients, your seniors. And,
you know, one, I I welcome the competition
and challenge because I I think that we
all need to do better. We all need
to get better. We we need to think
about the social barriers. It's,
again,
it's not your common medical conditions. It's these
complex social issues. It's it's it's sad to
think about,
you know, things like food insecurity where, again,
seniors have to think about, do I
pick up my medications and have that $5
co pay, which may seem in insignificant
to us, but that's that's the difference between
eating dinner
versus, you know, getting the getting the, medication.
Right? So I think most people would probably
say I'd like to eat. And so,
you know, so really listening to seniors,
really understanding what barriers they they truly have.
And then I think for the
for all of us,
outside the medical community, it's,
we we need to take care of our
seniors. You know, I think about my grandparents,
my parents,
our loved ones. We we just need to
do a better job,
taking care of them. This is the fastest,
population growing population,
that we have, the 65 and older. So
it'll continue to grow. We need to take
care of them.
They shouldn't end up in the hospital. They
shouldn't end up passing away because they can't
afford to eat or they can't
they don't have the transportation
to to see their doctor or make their
appointments. So
that would be my takeaway from,
from this report.
Wonderful. Well, really great insights. I think that's
a great place to leave things.
Doctor Kim, thank you so much for for
taking the time to be with us and
for sharing your insights with our listeners. We
really appreciate it.
Oh, thank you, Jacob. Happy.
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