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This is Haley Recker with the Becker's Payer
Podcast, and we are recording live at the
Becker's third annual spring payer issues roundtable.
I am thrilled today to be joined by
Elan Shapiro Straggler, who is the chief health
correspondent at medical affairs officer and senior vice
president at UltaMed Health Services. Elon, thank you
so much for joining me today. It's a
pleasure. Can I have you go ahead and
introduce yourself and tell us a little bit
more about yourself and your background? Gladly. Born
and raised in Mexico City. Had the pleasure
actually to do my MD career over there.
And afterwards, I had the opportunity to work
as a liaison between the secretary of health
and the WHO representing Mexico,
and I loved it. And I saw the
complexities
of,
not only the Pueblitos, the little towns in
Mexico, but also the complexity of multilateral
treaties,
the way of, opportunities,
complex
operational aspects of it, and regulatory,
pathways.
Had the the opportunity to actually be in
Duke Pediatrics here in Chicago,
and afterwards
served in, migrant communities and agricultural workers in
Fort Myers, Florida, and ended up for the
past ten years at,
AltaMed serving as a chief health correspondent medical
affairs officer, but passing along,
mental health, employee health, and, health education and
wellness.
Thank you so much for giving us a
little bit more info on your background. Now
to begin, I'd like to ask you about
the ever evolving regulatory landscape. So what best
practices or tools does your organization rely on
to keep quality of care at the forefront?
I think everybody will love to for me
to tell them what's my crystal ball and
how are we managing all this stuff.
And the important thing is to make sure
that we are in different forms
connecting and making sure that we're relying not
only on, what we're hearing, but also there's
tons of technology out there that gives you
the landscape
and also,
kind of project a lot of the things
that are happening at a local level, at
a state level, and, of course, at the
federal level.
Absolutely.
Now I'm gonna go ahead and pivot the
conversation a little bit to net promoter score,
which is a powerful indicator of member loyalty
and satisfaction.
So how are you using NPS to drive
meaningful improvements across your health plan?
It's a reflection
of a lot of things. It's one is
appreciation
of the member, the patient, and, actually, what
we are doing and what's actually happening on
the ground.
Then it's one of the most,
it's it's kind of a north. I will
not call it the true north of everything,
but actually gives you a lot of feedback
on processes and IVS
from the frontline. Who's actually answering the phone?
How are they getting their referral done?
Are the physicians taking care of them? Are
are they
having the results on time?
All of those things actually end up reflecting
the the that that actually metric.
Then integrating that to make sure that we're
achieving operational value and quality, it's extremely important.
So in addition to that quality,
we've also talked about the imperative to reduce
costs and advance health equity. So how do
you approach aligning these priorities in your organization's
strategic vision?
A lot of people think that that's completely
separate one to the other. On reality,
they're tied.
And,
it's very hard, and I'm a practicing physician.
And, we always hear
that our doctors tell us, you know, one,
make sure that you're eating green stuff.
Two, make exercise. And three, actually go and,
you know,
sleep well and everything else.
Then on reality,
when my patients go to a community
and they're in the supermarket, they they know
what's the green stuff, but
they actually fight against hunger. Then sometimes the
green stuff is actually more expensive and Mhmm.
Doesn't fight that. Or the other part of
doing exercise,
maybe there's no green spaces around them or
maybe they're not safe. Then integrating the way
that we are approaching the linguistically and culturally
concordant
hell is extremely important to make sure that
we are not just driving,
you know, those medications, those screenings, but also
trying to go outside of the
way that we are pursuing health care. You
know, like that, I go to a doctor
and I see the doctor and I do
that connection to the part of how can
we really integrate
everybody as a human. Because the interaction with
the doctors may be half an hour,
but the interaction with the community is long
lasting.
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking
the time to have this conversation with me
today. Again, this is Haley Brecker with the
Becker's Payer Podcast
recorded live at the Becker's third annual spring
payer issues roundtable. Elan, thank you so much.
Always a pleasure.