Blockchain centric startup Solve.Care is blazing a new trail for care coordination by combining the data from patients, providers, employers, and insurers into a single system.
The aim? To shrink costs and mitigate that waste that’s hindering the efficient delivery of healthcare worldwide.
Now in a groundbreaking new advancement Solve.Care is developing a “Book-A-Ride” card, a tool which will allow customers to schedule transportation to health-related appointments. The blockchain developer partnered with the transportation network company Lyft in March to curate this solution.
Book-A-Ride will enable patients to share information about the transportation service with their insurance company, family members, and providers. Through the use of blockchain this platform endeavors to improve access to different medical transportation options for non-emergency situations.
Interview With Solve.Care CEO Pradeep Goel
Solve.Care CEO Pradeep Goel is a healthcare executive with a relentless focus on enhancing the administration, coordination, quality and efficiency of medical care. His 25 years of healthcare experience as CEO, COO, CIO and CTO in insurance, benefits administration and public programs provides him with a unique perspective on the healthcare of tomorrow.
Goel agreed to a brief interview with Blockchain Healthcare Review on recent developments taking place at Solve.Care.
Please share a little about your professional journey?
I have more than 25 years of healthcare experience, developing groundbreaking software for the insurance industry, and co-founding four healthcare IT businesses where I served in a number of management roles including CEO, COO, CIO, and CTO.
I previously served as Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Information Officer at Noridian BlueCross BlueShield of North Dakota. In 1990, I co-founded Dakota Imaging, where I served as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.
So what is Solve.Care and how were you initially introduced to blockchain?
Solve.Care is essentially the culmination of my years spent as an executive in Healthcare, Insurance, and IT. I was first introduced to blockchain while involved in building a platform that would connect and create a communication channel for multiple entities involved in the healthcare ecosystem. We identified blockchain technology as the fabric that had the potential to address some of the most intricate problems in healthcare, and ultimately help us provide the highest quality of care for patients. The idea of leveraging decentralized ledger technology which could act as a collaborative, transparent, and immutable database that maintained the appropriate controls for data privacy and access, was compelling.
When was Solve.Care founded and what was the catalyst behind it?
As a parent, I have experienced first-hand the difficulties and inefficiencies with our healthcare system as my young son has a developmental disorder and requires continuous care. Because of this, I felt a compelling need to try and change the system. This, combined with more than 25 years of healthcare experience, led to Solve.Care being established in early 2017.
When I founded Solve.Care, I set out on a mission to redefine care coordination, improve access to care, empower the consumer with information, reduce benefit administration costs, as well as eliminate fraud and waste from healthcare and benefit administration around the world.
What is the compelling value proposition of blockchain in terms of the solutions you’re offering through Solve.Care?
The peer-to-peer capabilities of blockchain can empower consumers and doctors, and this is where blockchain and Solve.Care come in. We are working to help facilitate P2P transactions between all the stakeholders without the need for policing all transactions between them, resulting in a net benefit to all users of the system.
How do you believe these solutions ultimately contribute to greater cost savings, patient access and care quality in the healthcare industry?
I truly believe blockchain is the best available solution that we can leverage in order to reduce costly waste within the healthcare system and increase patient access and care quality. The complexity of the health system and reliance on multiple payers is contributing to soaring administrative costs. Healthcare is a collaborative effort, which requires involvement from multiple parties, and blockchain has the power to connect each of the different healthcare stakeholders.
How do you propose to resolve the interoperability challenges plaguing today’s fragmented healthcare industry?
Overall, blockchain is unlocking the value of interoperability and allowing for the coordination of care by eliminating the dependence on a centralized system and allowing all stakeholders in a patient’s care journey to communicate and interact through a permanent record of online transactions.
The healthcare industry is divided into three separate pillars: administrative, clinical, and financial. Solve.Care aims to address all three of these pillars. We want to solve interoperability challenges by making processes more effective, especially with more administrative bureaucracies that do not communicate efficiently. We offer specific solutions for each sector and for every stakeholder in healthcare.
From government agencies to insurance companies, and everyday users, our unique solution gives everyone a level playing field by decentralizing healthcare and putting patients back in the center of healthcare delivery, while also providing a common platform to administer it.
What sort of feedback are you receiving from your work with the Arizona Care Network? How do you believe it will inform the Solve.Care model moving forward?
Our client, Arizona Care Network (ACN) received the Innovation Award for their implementation of the Solve.Care Care.Wallet for Physicians at the 2019 National Association of Accountable Care Organizations Spring Conference. Additionally, there are over 200,000 patients aligned to ACN’s participating Provider Reward Program providers, who have access to the ACN Care.Wallet. This feedback is overwhelmingly positive and demonstrates that Solve.Care has the potential to roll this initiative out on a global scale.
Finally, tell us about your partnership with Lyft and the value proposition it provides to patients in terms of transportation to and from appointments?
Transportation is an integral part of healthcare coordination and, more often than not, can be a barrier to accessing adequate care. At Solve.Care, we want to enable and facilitate patients to access the care they need — be it follow-up appointments, picking up prescriptions, or seeing the right doctor at the right time.
Our partnership with Lyft allows us to provide a more efficient and seamless experience for patients — enabling healthcare payers, employers, and other agencies to improve patient satisfaction. We’re providing this through timely access to care, reduced wait times, simpler cost-sharing, and access to transportation subsidies. Our goal is to introduce non-emergency medical transport into patients’ healthcare plans and drive behavioral and economic change through our partnership with Lyft.
Managing Editor Michael Scott is a renowned blockchain journalist with a strong passion for the new digital economy. Prior to his career in media, he spent 10+ years serving leadership posts in healthcare, including UC Davis Medical Center institutional review board. Michael has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from The Ohio State University and a Master of Public Administration in Health Services Administration from the University of San Francisco.