Breez Health founder and CEO Nick McLaughlin was a guest on Where We Live, a live daily radio show on Connecticut’s flagship NPR station, WNPR. The show focused on hospital pricing and the cost of care.
Listen to the full episode on the Where We Live podcast.
In addition to Nick, host Lucy Nalpathanchil was joined by Vicki Veltri, executive director at the Office of Health Strategy for the State of Connecticut, and Paul Kidwell, senior vice president of policy at the Connecticut Hospital Association and Hearst Connecticut data reporter Mary Katherine Wildeman, who recently published a report on hospital price variability. Nick was a guest for the final segment, which focused on charity care.
Nick explained how Breez partners with hospitals to help them more effectively connect their lower-income patients to their financial assistance or charity-care programs. He explained how Breez reduces both the cost of care for the patients that need it the most and the administrative burden on hospitals.
The biggest advice Nick had for patients was to Google the name of their hospital and then “financial assistance program.” That will most likely get people to the right place. However, a lot of that information can be a bit challenging for patients to understand and navigate, and that’s where Breez comes in — helping hospitals make their financial assistance programs more patient-friendly and accessible.
Nick talked about the importance of increasing awareness that these financial assistance programs are available to patients, but also the need to reduce the hurdles and barriers to access. This will end up being a win for both patients and hospitals — everyone loses when a bill is sent to a patient who can’t afford to pay.
Lucy asked Nick about feedback from hospitals currently working with Breez and he said they are reporting a significant increase in awareness around their financial assistance programs. Breez’s easy-to-use eligibility checker allows patients to anonymously determine what assistance they are eligible for and prompts them to complete their application online. Unfortunately, at most hospitals right now those processes are paper-based. There are serious opportunities for optimizing the whole process, and that’s what Breez Health is doing.
