Kim Eason Discusses How Payers Can Collaborate With Oncology Providers

Insurers can engage the practices they work with by building a sense of trust and open communication with the providers, according to Kim Eason, manager at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of NJ.

Transcript (slightly modified)

What can other payers learn from the Horizon BCBS Episodes of Care program and the expansion to include specialties like oncology?

Our whole premise is really based around, how do you engage the practice? How do you engage the physician? And that’s the most important thing, outside of the patient and it being patient-centered, but ensuring that you collaborate with your partners and that it’s more than just a contract, it really is how those discussions occur. Ensuring you’re listening to the clinician, they are treating those patients. And then being transparent: providing data to them, giving timely information to them, answering basic questions. Sometimes those questions may not be related to the episode, but how do they navigate through the system within Horizon if they have certain questions.

So it’s really one of the things for us, if we’re going to encourage anyone, is ensuring you open the lines of communication with your providers, build trust with them, have transparency with them, and then have those ongoing dialogues take place around what’s working within the episode and what may not be working.