MedArrive, a company that partners with health plans to send paramedics, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and other healthcare professionals into the home, has begun collaborating with Heartbeat Health, a virtual cardiology company.
The companies said the partnership brings more care services into the home for health plans using MedArrive, especially those that serve Medicaid beneficiaries. With the addition of Heartbeat Health, MedArrive has a growing ecosystem of partners that offer specialty services – including for behavioral health, maternal health, and eye care. MedArrive has more than 50,000 EMT providers in its national network.
The companies said that the United States spends more than $320 billion — or 15 percent of total health expenditures — on cardiovascular disease (CVD). More than one in four Medicaid beneficiaries have some form of CVD, rates that are often much higher than in other populations. People on Medicaid also have high rates of the common risk factors that contribute to CVD, including hypertension and high cholesterol.
By partnering with Heartbeat Health, MedArrive can support health plans members with existing CVD or connect those at-risk with a cardiologist in a moment of need from the comfort of their home. Health plans the company works with include Centene, SCAN Health Plan, and Molina Healthcare.
The Heartbeat Health integration also supports several other use cases that are important to health plans, according to MedArrive. For members with chronic heart failure or who are enrolled in a case management program, MedArrive field providers can coordinate care with Heartbeat Health cardiologists and the health plan case management teams to assist with medication titration or to assess potential new symptoms. The integrated approach can help engage underserved populations, including people in rural regions or economically disadvantaged urban areas where accessing cardiology care presents greater challenges.
"Heart disease may be the number-one killer of all people in our country, but in the intricate web of health disparities, the vulnerability of individuals on Medicaid to heart disease is an undeniable fact. They face a perfect storm of limited access to quality healthcare, socioeconomic challenges, and systemic inequalities that amplifies their risk,” said MedArrive co-founder and CEO Dan Trigub, in a statement. “Health plans that are serious about both addressing social factors that influence health and reducing costs have an ally in MedArrive. Collaborations like ours with Heartbeat Health weave together compassion with more comprehensive and accessible care to ensure that no heart is left behind.”
In a 2022 interview with Healthcare Innovation, Trigub said the company’s core customers are value-based payers and providers — primarily managed Medicaid plans and Medicare Advantage ACOs. “We want to build tools for them to better serve their members,” he said. “We have built a national network of field providers. At the core of our field providers, we are leveraging EMTs and paramedics. We believe our highly trained and skilled workforce are very cost-effective and they're everywhere in rural communities and large metropolitan areas. We provide them with physician oversight via telemedicine.”
MedArrive works to lower the total cost of care for health plan partners, which in many cases comes down to reducing ED utilization. “With Molina Healthcare, for example, we served their Medicaid and dual-eligibles in Texas,” Trigub said. “They give us a list of that population. We reach out to those members, enroll them into our program, and provide valuable services, mostly chronic care management, to reduce those unnecessary ED utilizations, admissions and hospitalizations.”
Another area of focus, he said, is closing care gaps and ultimately helping with things like HEDIS gap closure, which helps generate revenue for health plans and helps with member retention and recruitment.
Access to cardiologists is challenging, especially as Baby Boomers continue to age, creating increasing demand on an existing shortage. Compounding the issue is that Medicaid beneficiaries often have fewer available options than commercially insured individuals.
"There could not be a more important target for this type of care. These are the highest-risk patients, and bringing high-quality, accessible cardiology care directly to the home will fundamentally improve the lives and trajectory of these members," said Heartbeat Health CEO and cardiologist Jeff Wessler, M.D., M.P.H., in a statement.
Moving forward, MedArrive and Heartbeat Health plan to engage health plans that are interested in both improving health outcomes and lowering the costs associated with heart disease.
MedArrive provides a variety of longitudinal care management programs that are “white-labeled” on behalf of health plans. Using its field-provider network of paramedics, EMTs and other healthcare professionals, MedArrive brings an array of care services into the homes of pre-identified health plans members, including diagnostics, health assessments and other preventive health measures.
These field providers also address social care needs like transportation, mobility or nutrition assistance. If higher-acuity care is needed, field providers can connect members with physician-led telehealth services, which now includes cardiologists.
