For Employers

Patient Advantage will impact the health care needs of your employees and their families, no matter how large or small your organization may be.

We focus on health cost containment, risk management, reduction of lost work time, and cross-over savings with Worker’s Compensation. Our services are customizable and flexible, able to fit your organization’s scheduling requirements and budget. Once you bring Patient Advantage on board, we will guide your members through the healthcare system.  We offer immediate return on investment as we save your organization money in the form of high dollar claims and lost worker productivity. Concurrently, we will be saving your members from catastrophic health events.

We offer:

Health Attitude Screen

Our patented Health Attitude Screen extrapolates how your members interact with the healthcare system; allowing our Nurse Advocates to recognize whether or not a member is capable of getting his or her health needs met. The positive predictive value of the survey aids our efforts in identifying who is likely to face a preventable catastrophe. Once your at risk members are identified our Nurse Advocates initiate an intervention before the catastrophe occurs. The Health Attitude Screen (HAS) is a minimally invasive questionnaire and has been shown to obtain information that is true and complete.

Red Flag Questions

The Health Attitude Screen was designed to identify the gaps where health care needs are not being adequately met. A portion of the questionnaire deals with "red flag" questions.  These questions help us to quickly identify members that are in need of immediate assistance.  An example of a red flag question would be explicitly asking if the member needs help with their medications.  When someone triggers a red flag question they are contacted by one of our Nurse Advocates within the week, ensuring our services are reaching those members most in need.

Other examples of questions on our Health Attitude Screen include asking members if they have a primary care physician, then following up with a question that identifies if they trust their doctor, how well they communicate with their doctor, and if their doctor allows them the time to express a secondary and/or tertiary complaint. All of these questions help determine how effective a member finds their primary care to be. Other questions identify if the member has the resources to deal with the health challenges they're currently facing.

Medication errors, hospital readmissions, lack of accessing preventative services, and other key avoidable catastrophes are averted by obtaining this information.

Effective Interventions

Our Nurse Advocates create relationships with their clients.  They invest in our members stories, lives, and families, and become close confidants.  They share in their clients successes and failures.  Our Nurse Advocates put a human face on health care.  Here at Patient Advantage we have found that employees accept our Nurse Advocates and our health initiatives due to the personal connections formed and the human contact we initiate and encourage.  

Patient Advantage only hires RNs with at least ten years experience in multiple settings within the field. Our registered nurses are skilled at assessing member needs and, with the supervision and guidance of the Medical Director, creating a care plan that will guide members toward meeting their unique health care needs and goals. 

Finding the 20% who cost 80% of the dollars

It is a well documented fact that - 80% of health care dollars will be consumed by 20% of members. Our Health Attitude Screen quickly identifies those members who are most likely to be part of the 20%. The analysis of the Health Attitude Screen provides a segway to meet with and engage the member. We then create an opportunity to discuss health issues during an onsite visit to the workplace, in the privacy of their home or through telephonic outreach. 

Weeding out the 20% and intervening early, leads to a significant return on investment.

Its not often that the world provides you with the tools to conduct scientific research in real life, but here at Patient Advantage we like to make use of good data.  In scientific research, experimenters will create 2 groups - a control group and a group that has a variable introduced to it.  One of our clients provided us with the perfect scenario to measure the efficacy of our services.  This clients has about half of their employees enrolled in a company sponsored insurance program - the other half are not covered through their employer.  Due in part to the services of Patient Advantage and its Nurse Advocates the employees who were within the company plan had zero cardiac events, while the employees who were not receiving Patient Advantage services experienced 3 cardiac events!  

3 life altering events and hundreds of thousands of claims dollars saved by early intervention.  

Interested in what Patient Advantage services could do for your employees?  Call today for a free Consultation.

Proactive Nurse Service

We preemptively identify members who are at high risk to develop chronic diseases.  Our Nurse Advocates effectively apply all of the known techniques to delay or avoid the onset of these diseases.  We know that this approach is the most effective way to reduce health care expenditures and hospitalizations.

For members who have already been diagnosed with a chronic disease, we provide guidelines for managing that illness.  These guidelines are taught to members and their support system to minimize the impact of the disease on their lives and to minimize the health care resources consumed by that member.

Patient Advocacy Service

Patient Advantage, LLC began as a patient advocacy firm.  Our board of directors understands how difficult it can be to navigate the healthcare system, which is why they created a firm to help people who are dealing with a medical crisis.  Having access to relevant medical information in a time of need can be life saving.  Having someone who can comprehensively explain that information to you and fight for your best treatment options can be miraculous. 

Our team of registered nurses each have at least ten years of experience in the field working in various settings.  They are capable and eager to act as an advocate for the member and/or the member’s loved ones.

Those members that are identified as being high risk for a chronic disease or a preventable medical catastrophe are met with one on one - in their workplace or home - to learn what changes they need to make to delay or avoid the onset of these illnesses. If their illness has progressed to the point where they are already manifesting symptoms, then the current guidelines for managing that illness are discussed with the member. An action plan for optimizing their health is developed in conjunction with the individual’s unique needs. The Nurse Advocate also communicates with the member’s physicians.  They address any questions or issues that the member or the member’s family have regarding treatment recommendations, prognosis, or the physician’s expectations. Our Nurse Advocates will also co-ordinate care and facilitate referrals as necessary.

Don't wait until its too late if you are in need of someone to advocate.    

Health Information Search Service

Our team of professional medical information searchers have at least ten years of medical research or internet medical information search experience. When one of your members is in need of information regarding a specific diagnosis, a searcher is assigned to the case to thoroughly research the diagnosis and associated questions. The information is then compiled into a report which is usually between fifty to one hundred pages long, and is then edited to a simple reading level. This report is then bound and hand delivered to the member’s home or work site by a Nurse Advocate who will stay until the member is satisfied that they understand the illness, possible treatment options, and all related questions.

Patient Advantage Challenge

The Patient Advantage Challenge is a wellness program that uses nutrition education combined with an exercise regime to produce weight loss results. It has been used in both small and large groups; these groups meet every week or two over a sixteen week period to help members track their progress and receive additional advice from their Nurse Advocate. The program is supplemented with presentations about specific nutrition and fitness topics.  The Patient Advantage Challenge has been shown to effectively reduce the risk of cardiac incidents, hypertension, and diabetic issues.

The Framingham Study Risk Factors

While developing our cardiac risk reduction program, the researchers at Patient Advantage looked to the gold standard of cardiac studies - the Framingham Study. This study, done over a two generation period, identified several risk factors that influence whether or not an individual will experience a heart attack. Some risk factors cannot be impacted by the Nurse Advocate directly and therefore must involve the Primary Care Provider. These factors include but are not limited to lipid profile, diabetes, and hypertension. 

Five factors were identified that could be measured, documented and influenced by the Nurse Advocate. These five factors can lower the risk of a first time heart attack by about 50%.

• Seeing the Primary Care Provider in a timely manner
• Properly taking medications
• Frequent blood pressure monitoring
• Engaging in a moderate exercise regime - twenty minutes a day five days per week
• Losing ten pounds

The Nurse Advocate meets with participants at regular intervals over a period of sixteen weeks during the Patient Advantage Challenge and documents these 5 factors. Each meeting includes an updated weight measure, pulse measurement, updated record of exercise and review of medication compliance. We also offer a Myogauge test which can be done, if appropriate.

Nutrition counseling program

A series of educational presentations are offered to help members make good nutritional decisions at home, at the grocery store and at restaurants. Based on the availability of the employee in the work setting, lessons are delivered in large group, small group, or individual settings. Employees that have specific nutritional questions or needs can see the Nurse Advocate one on one when the need arises.

Health Coaching

In situations where a complex health behavior poses a risk to health, changing the behavior is a difficult and complex task. This includes morbid obesity, smoking, and unmanaged stress most commonly, but many other behaviors as well. People who face these challenges have likely suffered with them for many years and have many barriers; social, emotional, and physical, to making the change. Weight loss is a good example. Morbidly obese people most likely have been so for much of their lives. Barriers may include an aversion to exercise due to pain in the back or lower limbs, fear of dieting because food is a comfort item, menu planning that is being handled by an unsympathetic spouse or caretaker, or an emotional fear of failure. This is the type of case where trust in the Nurse Advocate is required, and the member’s perception of patience, empathy, and guidance on the part of the Nurse Advocate is paramount. Success is built around creating a workable program with a clear goal as the measurement of success made up of baby steps. Each step completed comes with the emotional support of the Nurse Advocate and the encouragement of moving on to the next step. This is Health Coaching at its best. With other clients we have been able to document the loss of as much as 103 pounds for one employee, changing his risk category as it related to obesity. This change could not have been accomplished without repeated face to face encounters over a long period of time. Equally important, these steps create a new lifestyle with better choices and healthier behavior to give way to a healthier life, not just a program to lose weight.

Employers converting to a High Deductible Health Plan /Health Savings Account

• Helping the member understand the concept and details of the plan
  • Sharing of risk, responsibility of the member
  • Discussion of the basis of insurance and managing greater personal risk.
  • Accumulation of savings and financial impact of plan
  • Discussion of
    • tax leveraged savings
    • tax deferred savings
    • investment of savings
    • rollover at retirement
  • Likelihood of having a medical catastrophe
  • Statistics of deductible use
• Reach out education to the providers in the area of the plan
  • Advantages of the Health Savings Account patient
  • Cash pay, no claim filing for payment
  • Managing the paperwork for Health Savings account patients
• Clinical counseling for the members to anticipate the medical costs for the coming year
  • Review of prior medical expenses
  • Look at tax form and receipts of prior year 
  • Review of likely current year expenses
  • Discussion of current illness, current medication, likely tests, imaging or events that will be incurred

We build the success of our program on developing trust between our nurses and the employees. Through regular worksite visits. We use a high percentage of engagement, real time information, and effective interventions to lower the cost of health care.

To learn more about how the Patient Advantage program can help your business, contact us.