Empowered Patient Podcast

Nicole Broadhurst, CEO and Founder of Tennessee Health Advocates, is an expert on the world of independent Health Advocates, including clinical, cancer, rare disease advocacy, and medical billing and health insurance. She emphasizes the risks patients face when they do not understand how their health insurance works and the role an independent advisor can play in sorting out details and solving problems.

Nicole explains, "I would say the top risk for patient financial safety is that most patients don't understand their health insurance and the associated cost-sharing responsibilities. The words seem very simple, and we hear a lot about the deductible, coinsurance, copay, maximum out-of-pocket, and the total cost of coverage, which includes your maximum financial risk. Most people don't understand exactly how that all works."

"The second one, I would say, is not understanding how to utilize our healthcare options. A lot of people don't understand when it's appropriate to use their health insurance or if it would be beneficial for them to waive their insurance benefit and pay cash instead. Also, they don't know, and they don't understand what facilities to choose and what providers or their real options are."

#tennesseehealthadvocates #medicalbills #healthinsurance #reviewyourbills #understandyourbills #reviewyourmedicalbills #billingerrors #medicalbillingprofessional

TennesseeHealthAdvocates.com

Listen to the podcast here

Nicole Broadhurst, CEO and Founder of Tennessee Health Advocates, is an expert on the world of independent Health Advocates, including clinical, cancer, rare disease advocacy, and medical billing and health insurance. She emphasizes the risks patients face when they do not understand how their health insurance works and the role an independent advisor can play in sorting out details and solving problems.

Nicole explains, "I would say the top risk for patient financial safety is that most patients don't understand their health insurance and the associated cost-sharing responsibilities. The words seem very simple, and we hear a lot about the deductible, coinsurance, copay, maximum out-of-pocket, and the total cost of coverage, which includes your maximum financial risk. Most people don't understand exactly how that all works."

"The second one, I would say, is not understanding how to utilize our healthcare options. A lot of people don't understand when it's appropriate to use their health insurance or if it would be beneficial for them to waive their insurance benefit and pay cash instead. Also, they don't know, and they don't understand what facilities to choose and what providers or their real options are."

#tennesseehealthadvocates #medicalbills #healthinsurance #reviewyourbills #understandyourbills #reviewyourmedicalbills #billingerrors #medicalbillingprofessional

TennesseeHealthAdvocates.com

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Dr. David Huang is Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Peptilogics and working to change the approach for treating and reducing reinfection rates of periprosthetic joint infection, PJI. Their lead highly charged peptide PLG0206 has been shown to be broad spectrum and active against multi-drug resistant bacteria, common causes of PJI. Peptilogics' AI/ML platform is accelerating peptide discovery to reach better clinical candidates in therapeutic areas such as rare diseases, immuno-oncology, and immunology.

David explains, "Peptilogics' approach to changing the treatment paradigm for treating PJI is by treating PJI directly at the site of infection. Instead of administering an antibiotic systemically or by mouth, as mentioned earlier, Peptilogics has an engineered cationic peptide and an irrigation solution that can be administered directly to the site of infection in the wound cavity of the knee, for example. The knee does not have a great blood supply. Therefore, antibiotics given intravenously or by mouth have a difficult time getting to the site of infection in the knee."

"Peptilogics' lead peptide called PLG0206 is an engineered cationic antibacterial peptide, which has orphan drug QIDP, which stands for qualified infectious disease product, and fast track designation from the FDA. And the way that PLG works is by its novel mechanism of action. It selectively binds to and disrupts the integrity of the bacterial membrane by altering the physical characteristics of the membrane, leading to a rapid loss of the bacterial cell membrane potential that results in cell death."

@Peptilogics #Peptilogics #PJI #PeriprostheticJointInfection #Peptides

Peptilogics.com

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Dr. David Huang is Senior VP and Chief Medical Officer at Peptilogics and working to change the approach for treating and reducing reinfection rates of periprosthetic joint infection, PJI. Their lead highly charged peptide PLG0206 has been shown to be broad spectrum and active against multi-drug resistant bacteria, common causes of PJI. Peptilogics' AI/ML platform is accelerating peptide discovery to reach better clinical candidates in therapeutic areas such as rare diseases, immuno-oncology, and immunology.

David explains, "Peptilogics' approach to changing the treatment paradigm for treating PJI is by treating PJI directly at the site of infection. Instead of administering an antibiotic systemically or by mouth, as mentioned earlier, Peptilogics has an engineered cationic peptide and an irrigation solution that can be administered directly to the site of infection in the wound cavity of the knee, for example. The knee does not have a great blood supply. Therefore, antibiotics given intravenously or by mouth have a difficult time getting to the site of infection in the knee."

"Peptilogics' lead peptide called PLG0206 is an engineered cationic antibacterial peptide, which has orphan drug QIDP, which stands for qualified infectious disease product, and fast track designation from the FDA. And the way that PLG works is by its novel mechanism of action. It selectively binds to and disrupts the integrity of the bacterial membrane by altering the physical characteristics of the membrane, leading to a rapid loss of the bacterial cell membrane potential that results in cell death."

@Peptilogics #Peptilogics #PJI #PeriprostheticJointInfection #Peptides

Peptilogics.com

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Virginia Halsey, Vice President of Product Management at FDB, First Databank, is focused on helping pharmacists use drug interaction information, drug alerts and dosage data in smarter, more efficient ways. WIth patient safety in mind, FDB is arming pharmacists with relevant content to determine the clinical impact of a specific drug on a specific patient.

Virginia elaborates, "First Databank is drug content, but a very specific niche of drug content in that it is structured in such a way that it's built into the workflow of other systems. So, for instance, if a patient goes into a retail pharmacy, the pharmacist behind the counter is using their system to basically fill the prescription, adjudicate the claim, and so forth. But that drug content that's within their system comes from First Databank. Content that describes the products that are available, the pricing, and most importantly, clinical information about the drug, such as what's the appropriate dose or what are the drug interactions."

"It's saving time, and it's addressing cognitive overload. So yes, the pharmacist can read this list of potential safety issues and interpret it, but there are a couple of problems. One is that then you have to take that time to sort through and think about the alternatives, maybe look something up. The other is, then, you get a lack of standardization because one pharmacist may come to one conclusion. Another may come to another conclusion instead of having standardized practice protocols and alternatives."

@FDB_US #FirstDatabank #Pharmacy #Healthtech #Pharmacists #MedicationGuidance #HIT

fdbhealth.com

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Virginia Halsey, Vice President of Product Management at FDB, First Databank, is focused on helping pharmacists use drug interaction information, drug alerts and dosage data in smarter, more efficient ways. WIth patient safety in mind, FDB is arming pharmacists with relevant content to determine the clinical impact of a specific drug on a specific patient.

Virginia elaborates, "First Databank is drug content, but a very specific niche of drug content in that it is structured in such a way that it's built into the workflow of other systems. So, for instance, if a patient goes into a retail pharmacy, the pharmacist behind the counter is using their system to basically fill the prescription, adjudicate the claim, and so forth. But that drug content that's within their system comes from First Databank. Content that describes the products that are available, the pricing, and most importantly, clinical information about the drug, such as what's the appropriate dose or what are the drug interactions."

"It's saving time, and it's addressing cognitive overload. So yes, the pharmacist can read this list of potential safety issues and interpret it, but there are a couple of problems. One is that then you have to take that time to sort through and think about the alternatives, maybe look something up. The other is, then, you get a lack of standardization because one pharmacist may come to one conclusion. Another may come to another conclusion instead of having standardized practice protocols and alternatives."

@FDB_US #FirstDatabank #Pharmacy #Healthtech #Pharmacists #MedicationGuidance #HIT

fdbhealth.com

Download the transcript here

Dr. Jason Cohen, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions at Qventus, is addressing the problems that hospitals face regarding discharging patients. Much of care planning starts during hospitalization or at the last minute, so patients and caregivers are often left confused about the next appropriate care environment. Qventus is deploying AI to build a model with hundreds of different data points to predict highly-individualized discharge plans. This benefits patients, hospitals, and care teams by keeping track of progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making necessary adjustments to the care plan.

Jason elaborates, "We look at patients, for example, who get an early discharge plan, which we define as being an estimated date of discharge and a disposition where they're likely to go. Those patients that have their care team aligned around that early plan by the second midnight in the hospital experience have significantly fewer excess days in the hospital. They're more likely to leave on time and get to their next most appropriate care environment, whether that's a skilled facility, rehab, home with home help, et cetera. And then on the other side of that, again, is that tension with the dynamically changing nature of that patient's health, and things can change from day to day."

"Our solution has multiple different components, which hopefully we'll get into, but one of the core parts is our AI machine learning model that is able to help care teams align on that early discharge plan as soon as possible. And in the case of our models, the majority of patients, we're able to populate that plan directly into the EHR so that there's transparency across all those teams after the first midnight in the hospital."

@Qventus #Qventus #HospitalDischargePlanning #HospitalDischarge #AI #BigData #Hospitals

Qventus.com

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Dr. Jason Cohen, Senior Director of Clinical Solutions at Qventus, is addressing the problems that hospitals face regarding discharging patients. Much of care planning starts during hospitalization or at the last minute, so patients and caregivers are often left confused about the next appropriate care environment. Qventus is deploying AI to build a model with hundreds of different data points to predict highly-individualized discharge plans. This benefits patients, hospitals, and care teams by keeping track of progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making necessary adjustments to the care plan.

Jason elaborates, "We look at patients, for example, who get an early discharge plan, which we define as being an estimated date of discharge and a disposition where they're likely to go. Those patients that have their care team aligned around that early plan by the second midnight in the hospital experience have significantly fewer excess days in the hospital. They're more likely to leave on time and get to their next most appropriate care environment, whether that's a skilled facility, rehab, home with home help, et cetera. And then on the other side of that, again, is that tension with the dynamically changing nature of that patient's health, and things can change from day to day."

"Our solution has multiple different components, which hopefully we'll get into, but one of the core parts is our AI machine learning model that is able to help care teams align on that early discharge plan as soon as possible. And in the case of our models, the majority of patients, we're able to populate that plan directly into the EHR so that there's transparency across all those teams after the first midnight in the hospital."

@Qventus #Qventus #HospitalDischargePlanning #HospitalDischarge #Hospitals #AI #BigData

Qventus.com

Download the transcript here

Robert Hoffman President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at Kintara Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain tumor. The only drug temozolomide, TMZ, was approved in 1999 and the overall survival rate is very limited. The Kintara drug VAL-083 crosses the blood-brain barrier and is also showing promise for pediatric brain tumors and some ovarian cancers.

Robert explains, "The mechanism of VAL-083 differs from other key chemotherapeutic agents, including TMZ. It induces interstrand cross-links at guanine N07, causing DNA double-strand break and cancer cell death. If you compare that to TMZ, it only induces a single-strand DNA break at N07, and the tumor cells can repair them. That's really an important distinction of our mechanism of action. So, we're really, really excited."

"So, I could imagine once it's approved, physicians would potentially combine it with TMZ, potentially which still may happen. Or Avastin, potentially. So, yes, there is a possibility for that. We're looking at, coincidentally, ovarian cancer with VAL-083 with some PARP inhibitors. So, there are other potential combinations that we're looking at down the road, as well."

"Another underserved area is pediatric brain tumors. We're looking at DIPG, which is a pediatric indication, as well as medulloblastoma"

@Kintara_Thera #Kintara #GBM #Glioblastoma #Cancer #BrainCancer #BrainTumor

kintara.com

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Robert Hoffman President, CEO, and Chairman of the Board at Kintara Therapeutics, is developing a drug to treat glioblastoma, the most common and deadliest form of brain tumor. The only drug temozolomide, TMZ, was approved in 1999 and the overall survival rate is very limited. The Kintara drug VAL-083 crosses the blood-brain barrier and is also showing promise for pediatric brain tumors and some ovarian cancers.

Robert explains, "The mechanism of VAL-083 differs from other key chemotherapeutic agents, including TMZ. It induces interstrand cross-links at guanine N07, causing DNA double-strand break and cancer cell death. If you compare that to TMZ, it only induces a single-strand DNA break at N07, and the tumor cells can repair them. That's really an important distinction of our mechanism of action. So, we're really, really excited."

"So, I could imagine once it's approved, physicians would potentially combine it with TMZ, potentially which still may happen. Or Avastin, potentially. So, yes, there is a possibility for that. We're looking at, coincidentally, ovarian cancer with VAL-083 with some PARP inhibitors. So, there are other potential combinations that we're looking at down the road, as well."

"Another underserved area is pediatric brain tumors. We're looking at DIPG, which is a pediatric indication, as well as medulloblastoma"

@Kintara_Thera #Kintara #GBM #Glioblastoma #Cancer #BrainCancer #BrainTumor

kintara.com

Download the transcript here