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Evernorth brings the power of wonder and relentless

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innovation to create world class pharmacy, care, and

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benefit solutions.

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Barriers to care can lead to gaps in

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care, which can drive up the total cost

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of care. Our capabilities work seamlessly together to

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create innovative pharmacy care and benefit solutions for

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today and tomorrow.

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Our connected health services make the treatment, prediction,

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and prevention of health care's most complex conditions

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easier and more accessible as we drive organizations

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and people forward.

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This is Haley Rudger with the Becker's Payer

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Podcast, and we are recording live at the

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Becker's third annual spring payer issues roundtable.

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I am thrilled today to be joined by

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Sareya Sacochio, chief medical officer at Essence Health.

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Sareya, thank you so much for joining me

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today. Can you go ahead and tell us

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a little bit more about yourself and your

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background? Sure, Haley. And what a fantastic conference.

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I just have to say the voices in

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the room, the energy that we're feeling here

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today is

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fantastic.

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So and I'm so impressed with the way

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you said my name. Soria Sancosio. Very good.

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I'm the chief medical officer for Essence Health,

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and we are a Medicare Advantage health plan.

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We've got about 60,000

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members.

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We focus on a physician led approach for

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true value based care.

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Awesome.

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Well, to begin our conversation, I'd like to

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start talking about balancing affordability and quality. So

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how is your organization innovating to manage the

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cost of care while maintaining or improving member

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outcomes?

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I like to describe the work that we

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do as an action packed

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documentary.

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I'm gonna start with a documentary because it's

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so important to be factual with what we

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do and accurate

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with how we document the clinical story of

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the patient.

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Where the action comes from is that PCP

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engagement that we have. Quality of care is

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critical in everything we do. Every visit, every

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time, we focus on taking care of that

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patient, not just for chronic disease, but for

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preventive medicine,

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chronic disease to optimize

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the vitality of health for our members. So

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it takes a whole team to do this.

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And by telling the story,

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we have an action packed documentary.

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Well, that was an awesome way of explaining

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that. Now moving on to my next question,

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what are some of the best practices or

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tools that your organization relies on to keep

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quality of care at the forefront?

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Well, first of all, Haley, we keep it

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simple.

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And I've got an acronym that I use,

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a PPD.

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So the clinicians who are listening will get

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a PPD and what we're looking for there.

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But for us, it is truly about

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starting with primary care.

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That access to a PCP cannot be overemphasized

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how important that is. The relationship

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between a patient and their primary care physician

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is everything

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because they know how to give good care,

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But it takes a frequency of access to

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primary care to ensure that you're covering both

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preventive and chronic disease.

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We partner with our physicians

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and engage at a high level. In fact,

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they help us develop our program

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based on what they believe our patients, our

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members need, and you can't do that without

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data.

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And instead of just saying we have data

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analytics and just like everyone else, we do

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have a tech stack, of course, but we

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data enable

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our PCPs to be very successful

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and for our members to receive the best

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care every time.

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Our tech stack helps them not only see

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the individual patient as they're in the exam

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room, but their entire population. Because what often

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is missed is the patient who doesn't cross

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the threshold.

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So we believe that outreach to every patient,

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every member is critical to good health care.

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Awesome. Now I wanna take a moment to

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address health equity, which is a critical focus

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for many health plans. Can you share an

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overview of a key initiative here that you're

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involved in or particularly excited about, and what

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are you hoping to achieve? I sure can

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in one word. Community.

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And community means so many things to us

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at Essence Health. Community means our team members,

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And it takes every single one of us

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to understand what is health equity and why

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it matters because it does. Whether you're the

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member in the room

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or you are the PCP serving this patient,

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we need to understand how to meet everyone

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where they are

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when they need it. So that's something that

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we do. I'll also say that community engagement

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is important.

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So often we try to do our things

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ourselves as a family physician.

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I I'm a self starter, and I think

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I can do everything myself. I can't. It

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takes a team. It takes a community.

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And why we're not only partnering

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with community

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nonprofits,

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We partner with the community in our health

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systems as they already have these relationships. We

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can do so much more together

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to have the greatest impact

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if we focus on the big c. Absolutely.

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Now for my final question today, I wanna

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talk about the future of the payer space.

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So what do you see as the biggest

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opportunity for payers to lead the charge in

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transforming care delivery and driving better outcomes for

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all stakeholders? And how can leaders take a

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step in this direction now?

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Well, the latest

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sexiest acronym

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is I know you know this one. It's

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AI. Okay. Okay. We talk about AI every

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day, and it is so sexy, but we

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need to demystify

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Mhmm. AI.

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It is everyone's job to understand AI. In

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fact, we all do AI. If you've been

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on Google lately, you have AI ed.

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And so whether it's our members

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that understand AI and how to use it

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best, our team members, and our primary care

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physicians. That is critical in the work that

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we do. Demystify,

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educate,

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and let's train everybody up to be successful

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in that. The last thing I'll share is

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about technology.

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For example, with our company, with Essence,

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we are the first health plan that Oura,

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Rings, have partnered with. So our Medicare Advantage

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Plan offers to some of our members Oura

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access,

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And this gives us the opportunity

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to

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partner for the greatest health and vitality

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that each member can have, whether it's measuring

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their sleep, their heart rate, how active they

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are. All of these things matter. And then

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we partner with our physicians

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to create the greatest impact with that medical

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information now available.

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Yeah. That's really amazing. I feel like I

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haven't gone a single day without hearing about

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the word AI. You know? Mhmm.

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Mhmm. Well, thank you so much for joining

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me today on the Becker's Payer podcast. Again,

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this is Haley Recker.

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We were recording live at the Becker's third

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annual spring pair issues roundtable. Sariya, thank you

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so much. Thank you, and have fun at

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this fantastic conference. Thanks. You too.