Month: June 2022

By Lorri Markum
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June 16, 2022

Most labs in the U.S. are struggling with staffing shortages, supply chain disruptions and reconciling costs with reimbursements. Spending time and resources identifying specific healthcare providers who can benefit from their lab services is a challenge. Lab testing lays a foundation for value-based care that benefits everyone involved, but if labs and providers aren’t able to connect, the pain point is felt not only by the labs but also by health systems, providers and their patients. 

A recent article published in The American Journal of Managed Care notes that lab testing is where value-based care starts and is the gateway for appropriate diagnosis and treatment planning, ultimately impacting cost, quality and outcomes. From diagnosis to medications and from hospital admittance to discharge, 70% of patient treatment decisions are guided by lab results. Digitizing lab results across all healthcare settings and unlocking the potential of lab values is helping health plans improve the patient experience, improve the health of populations and reduce the per-member cost of health care. 

Working with numerous labs over the past 11 years, hc1 witnessed their stress to achieve sufficient growth. Recognizing that having the right data to target the right providers in their marketing and sales efforts would make a difference, hc1 sought to resolve some of the challenges labs face by creating hc1 ProviderView. By implementing targeted marketing and sales practices, labs have better opportunities to identify specific health systems and providers to offer them the services and products that best meet their needs and help them deliver improved care for their patients. 

hc1 ProviderView is an affordable solution that helps labs of all sizes find the right providers quickly with detailed, robust information and the convenience of importing contacts directly into hc1 Operations Management™. 

Brad Bostic, founder and CEO of hc1 has said that “hc1 ProviderView™ brings a critical component to our Lab Insights Platform that unlocks massive value for our clients: Instant access to more than 5 million provider records including detailed analysis of their medical claims and prescribing activity. With this powerful insight, lab clients can instantly identify providers that can benefit from their test offerings.”

An example of how ProviderView works—imagine a lab’s outreach team wants to spread the word about a new specialty test they’re performing without spending valuable man-hours researching, collecting, downloading and uploading lists. ProviderView can quickly and easily access the contact information they need.

With a few clicks in ProviderView, users can filter providers based on specialties (e.g. cardiology, gynecology) to see the nationwide distribution of providers with that specialty on the interactive dashboard heat map. That view instantly highlights the number of providers within a state, along with basic stats regarding specialty providers and the number of providers with public medical claims. At a glance, users may also view the top five provider specialists based on public medical claims and filter by geographic region (e.g. Florida, New York). When they have narrowed down the list of providers they are looking for using additional public medical and prescription claims filters, they can access the contact information for those individual providers immediately and import that information into hc1 Operations Management™ and begin contacting those providers in a matter of minutes.

ProviderView is streamlined, clean and easy to use, which saves users invaluable time targeting leads to share information about tests the lab has available and best suited for a given specialty.

hc1 is currently extending an opportunity for labs to try ProviderView free for 30 days! Included in the trial period is one user account and basic training. This allows interested labs hands-on experience using the solution.

Empowering labs with the tools they need to connect with the right healthcare providers is essential to their growth and success, ensuring patients receive the right tests. Interested in requesting a custom demo of hc1 ProviderView? Click here.

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Lorri Markum is the marketing manager for hc1 Insights and has over two decades of corporate and nonprofit marketing leadership experience. Lorri specializes in B2B marketing and is SEO Certified. A graduate of Ball State University with a degree in psychology, digital communications and storytelling. For the past 25 years, Lorri has been a professional commercial photographer and photojournalist in the music industry. Before joining hc1 she served as the marketing manager for a nonprofit healthcare organization, serving 40 counties throughout Indiana.

By Heather Stith
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June 23, 2022

Precision health builds on the principle that a person’s health depends on the interaction of many biological, environmental and behavioral factors. Sex, which encompasses biologically defined traits related to anatomy, and gender, which encompasses socially defined traits related to self-concept and identity, are important characteristics that affect this interaction. As research datasets and participant groups are diversified according to sex, gender and other factors, we will understand more about how this interaction affects health outcomes. June is Men’s Health Month, so the time is right to think about how healthcare providers can apply precision health principles to optimize care for men.

Providers who practice preventive healthcare must evaluate a variety of data to assess an individual patient’s level of health risk. Choosing the right screening tests according to a man’s age, family health history, personal medical history, lifestyle, social determinants and other personal characteristics is important to mitigate those risks without causing undue harm or expense. Once a man has a health problem, continuing appropriate testing is important for diagnosing and monitoring disease development and evaluating treatment effectiveness.

Age and Disease Risk

As men age, their risk for developing certain diseases increases. Family medical history or genetic testing results may add to that level of risk. A higher risk of disease typically warrants testing at a younger age and more often.

With younger men, the first obstacle to addressing health risks is getting them to establish a regular preventative healthcare routine. According to the National Center for Health Statistics’ National Health Interview Survey, U. S. men between the ages of 18 and 44 are much less likely than women of the same age, children or adults aged 45 and older to have a usual place to go for healthcare. This means they are likely to miss out on these recommended screenings:

  • Blood pressure check:  Any reading higher than 120 (systolic) over 80 (diastolic) is cause for concern. Under current guidelines, the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association classify high blood pressure (hypertension) as starting at 130/80. Hypertension puts people at higher risk for developing cardiovascular disease, stroke, dementia and kidney disease.

Younger men are much more likely than younger women to have high blood pressure,  according to the American Heart Association. For ages 20 to 34, the prevalence of hypertension is 25.7% of men compared to 13% of women; for ages 35 to 44, it’s 42.5% versus 31.6%.  Men are also less likely than women to be aware that they have hypertension, to be getting treatment for it, and to have it under control.

When race and ethnicity are considered, the risks can be even higher. Black men have the highest prevalence of high blood pressure across all age groups at 58.6 % of the population. Compare that to 48.2% of white men, 47.4% of Hispanic men, and 46.4 % of Asian men.

  • Lipoprotein panel: These test results show the levels of HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides in the patient’s blood. This data is important to better assess the patient’s risk of  cardiovascular disease. The National, Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommends this testing first at age 9 to 11, next at 14 to 16, and then every 5 years from age 20 to 45. Because men tend to experience cardiovascular disease at a younger age than women,  men should start being screened every 1 or 2 years beginning at age 45.
  • Colorectal cancer screening: In response to data showing that the number of younger people getting colorectal cancer is increasing, the American Cancer Society and others have recently lowered the recommended age of a first colorectal cancer screening from 50 to 45. The risk of developing colorectal cancer is nearly the same for men and women. Colonoscopies are the preferred test because they are thorough, and any precancerous polyps that are found can be removed during the procedure. However, if patients do not want to undergo sedation or do bowel preparation, they have other options, such as stool tests.

Just as important as choosing the appropriate age to begin screening for cancers and other serious diseases is recognizing when to stop this testing. Such tests are not likely to improve patient outcomes if the patient is older than 75 or has an estimated life expectancy of less than 10 years.

Lifestyle Factors

According to the Centers for Disease Control, men are more likely to smoke and drink alcohol, habits that increase their health risks. Men are also less likely to take certain actions to reduce health risks, such as getting a flu vaccine. On the plus side, men are more likely to exercise than women.

As Lauren Vogel points out in the Canadian Medical Association Journal article titled “Why do patients often lie to their doctors?,” patients may not give accurate information when asked about behavior that is likely to negatively affect their health. If the behavior progresses to the point of physical symptoms, providers may need to use testing or other measures to get a full picture of their patients’ health. Providers can increase the odds of getting honest answers to lifestyle questions by taking the time to establish trust with their patients. 

  • Weight: An unhealthy diet and lack of exercise can cause obesity. According to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 34.1% of men are overweight; 43% are obese. Obesity prevalence is lowest among Asian men at 17.5%, compared with 41.1% for Black men, 44.7% for white men, and 45.7% for Hispanic men. Being overweight or obese increases a man’s risk of heart disease; stroke; type 2 diabetes; cancer in the esophagus, gallbladder, stomach, kidneys, liver, pancreas, and thyroid; depression; sleep apnea; and erectile dysfunction. 

The U.S Preventive Services Task Force recommends prediabetes and type 2 diabetes screening for all overweight adults between 35 and 70.  The A1C or HbA1c blood sugar test is typically used for this screening, with a result of 5.7% to 6.4% indicating prediabetes and a result of 6.5% or above indicating diabetes.

  • Mental health:  Although mental illness as a whole is more prevelant in women than men, men are less likely to have received mental health treatment in the past year and are more likely to die from drug overdoses and suicide. Symptoms of mental illness can include insomnia or excessive sleeping; anger and aggressiveness; behavior that interferes with work or relationships; and unexplained headaches, pain or digestive issues.

Screening for mental health issues involves asking questions about thoughts and behavior instead of testing specimens. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening all adults for unhealthy drug use, suicide risk and depression. Treatment through medication and talk therapy requires a personalized approach and consistent follow-up to be effective.

Providers are constantly under pressure to provide better care in less time and for less money. They need clinical decision support in order to be able to apply LIS and EHR information, population data, professional society recommendations, and healthcare organization initiatives to the individual men they are treating. With this support, they have the best chance of personalizing testing and treatments to deliver the best possible patient outcome.

For providers and healthcare organizations that are working to deliver precision care, hc1 offers hc1 PrecisonDx Advisor™ to help optimize lab test ordering. This solution analyzes data against a set of customizable rules based on the latest recommendations from government, medical professional societies and advocacy groups for laboratory stewardship. These rules include demographic criteria, such as gender and age, as well as diagnosis, medication and test result criteria. Request a demo to learn more.