Utilize Health describes itself on its website as “[improving] the health and wellbeing of people with neurological conditions while lowering the overall cost of care.” The company promises a holistic approach to care management, saying it offers “a better way to manage complex neurological conditions from diagnosis to chronic stage” through personalized programs designed using “comprehensive risk tools and care plans.” In a nutshell, Utilize Health is staunchly committed to being there for people during what is characterized as a world-changing instant when “endless information is given without a map or directions.”
The Tennessee-based Utilize Health’s mission is deeply resonant to Christine Black. Black, who serves as the company’s vice president of business development, explained to me in a recent interview she functions as a caregiver for her husband after he suffered a “high-level spinal cord injury” which resulted in him becoming a “ventilator-dependent quadriplegic.” This lived experience makes her unique insofar as she gets a close-up view of what neurological care looks like in everyday life. Black reiterated Utilize Health’s mission statement, telling me the company is a “care management company that supports individuals who are living with complex neurological conditions” such as stroke, traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and much more.
The impetus for Utilize Health’s work lies is providing people with a robust plan of action following their diagnosis of a neurological condition in the hospital. What often happens, Black said, is the diagnosis is delivered to patients while they’re still admitted; the problem lies once they’re discharged, at which time Black said “the onus is left to individuals and their families to try to help navigate everything.”
To be sure, “everything” indeed is as overwhelming as the diagnosis itself: it encompasses things like insurance, medication, financial constraints, and many “pieces of the puzzle” that Black said often leaves people with their head spinning without the proper support behind them, helping fit it all together. Utilize Health wants to be that buffer.
“There are not large enough case management teams to support them,” Black said of the issue facing patients and their families who need a stronger support system. “Because of the many nuances of the conditions themselves, there are so many different factors at play: social determinants of health, physical functional needs… a lot of different areas. People need the help they’re not getting from their providers.”
Black’s sentiments aren’t blustery or exaggerated in the least. Utilize Health, she told me, has talked both to patients and providers–including primary care physicians and specialists—in identifying problem areas in this arena. For those with neurological conditions which require complex care, there exists a “big hole in the market.” Given her husband’s needs, Black is acutely aware of the aforementioned gap.
“I can attest to the need for care coordination,” she said.
Like with most things digital accessibility, Black said that although Utilize Health conceivably could exist in an alternate universe where technology and the internet weren’t so domineering, the reality is it couldn’t work “as effectively” without it. Technology has opened many more doors in terms of not only access, but the rapid proliferation of information and connectedness; Utilize Health can do what it does because everyone is so interconnected now. Black also noted the company has developed tools for people coping with depression and other comorbidities. The essential part of technology’s role in Utilize Health’s operation is really scale; without access to tools like electronic medical records, or EMRs, the company’s effectiveness would be shunted—and that says nothing for the accessibility of something like Google to help guide families to finding services like Utilize Health for their loved one(s). The major downside is, as Black emphatically pointed out, Utilize Health currently operates in Tennessee and only Tennessee.
If you’re a Tennessean who copes with a neurological condition and needs help, Black said Utilize Health is “the option” as far as coordinating care at scale. There exist similarly-focused companies who do things around renal care or cancer care, but for those living with what she called “acute or chronic neurological conditions,” Black said Utilize Health has the capability to comprehensively support these people.
When asked about feedback, Black told me it has been “positive” while going on to add Utilize Health has been lauded for helping people improve their “self-reported anxiety and depression scores” as well as helping critical socioeconomic needs such as finding employment, housing, and food security. Utilize Health’s care managers are integral to people navigating day-to-day life, with Black saying they’re “trusted advocates that are helping them to reach better health outcomes.”
As to Utilize Health’s plans for the future, Black said the company is investigating contracting with more healthcare plans such as Medicare Advantage as to expand its reach. More broadly, it’s Black’s hope that “more attention is paid” to people with neurological needs in terms of care and stronger support. She was candid in sharing her own personal experience, telling me “it’s really been a struggle” for her husband to rack up the resources he and his family need despite being “highly educated” and having family members with esteemed jobs like doctors and lawyers. Black and family struggled to get her husband nursing care by way of home health visits. It’s easier for Black and family to pay for concierge home care because his extreme needs dictate that taking him out for community care is rather untenable. In short, it’s difficult for Black and everyone to “address all of the needs” her husband has.
“If we can, as a society, aim to provide care that takes the whole person into account and their family as well—meeting them where they are in the home—that will lead to better care experiences overall,” she said.
Black continued: “A lot of health plans that I’ve spoken with have really robust case management and care management divisions. The problem is, though, their members oftentimes don’t trust them because the members are getting denials for different services from those payers. A company like [Utilize Health] and others that are doing outside care management, I think we add value because we become that trusted source. I think it’s in a [healthcare] plan’s best interest to separate care management and other plan offerings because, as I mentioned, they are making those critical determinations for authorizations and the things their members need. Members can often withhold information and not want to work with the plan because there’s this push and pull between member and payer. That’s where care management companies like ours can add a lot of value by becoming that trusted source for members.”