Health insurer AmeriHealth New Jersey has partnered with oncology care management company Thyme Care to help its members with cancer diagnoses. The new alliance starts on January 1, 2023.
Thyme CareFounder and CEO Robin Shah said the Nashville-based company was founded in 2020 and is focused on helping patients through their cancer journey by providing education and support about diagnosis and treatment, and ideally allowing them to survive.survivor refer to The health and well-being of cancer patients from diagnosis to end of life, including the physical, psychological, emotional and financial aspects of cancer. But in the event of non-survival, the company also provides support to patients and families to obtain the best end-of-life care.
“This early process is one of the most vulnerable times in any cancer patient’s life,” Shah said. “What we’ve learned is that it takes a long time to understand what’s going on, and we have to solve problems for them. … Our focus and goal is to help people through this complex journey.”
Patients can access thyme virtually through four media: phone calls, text messages, emails, and video. The company has an app called Thyme Box, a software platform that allows navigators to learn about patients and receive patient information from their providers and health plans. It also allows the company to record information every time a patient communicates with a Thyme employee.
Partner with AmeriHealth Announce Last week, the health plan will educate its members about the thyme model so they know they can use it if they are diagnosed with cancer. Thyme will provide data analysis on membership numbers to help diagnose members early and identify risk factors throughout their care.
Thyme will also provide resources for those diagnosed, including access to oncology-trained nurses and oncology resource specialists who focus on social determinants of health and help with non-clinical issues such as finances and transportation.
“When a member is diagnosed with cancer, nothing else goes away,” Shah said. “So, how do we make sure that while cancer diagnoses themselves are very time-consuming, do they have people thinking about other things?”
Although members will receive thyme care for free, the two entities will make money through a value-based care model, in which both organizations share responsibility for the cost of care and the quality of care that patients receive.
Thyme is attracted to with American Health Shah said because it found many members of the health plan who were diagnosed with cancer. Thyme then conducted an in-depth analysis to determine the type of cancer members were experiencing, the demographics of the population, and areas where care could be improved.
This isn’t the first such collaboration for Thyme, which has also partnered with Clover Health. With Clover Health and AmeriHealth New Jersey, Thyme’s current focus is New Jersey and surrounding areas. Soon, the company will announce more partnerships, but Shah declined to provide information on those.
Shah said Thyme’s ultimate goal is to improve the experience and access to care for cancer patients, and the partnership with AmeriHealth is a step in that direction.
“Our goal with AmeriHealth … is to give their members a better experience on the cancer journey, improving the quality of their care through this highly toxic, complex, and laborious process of cancer diagnosis and treatment,” Shah said.
Photo: Mohammed Hanefa, Getty Images
