THE CHALLENGE
St. Joseph Hospital is a 208-bed acute care community hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire. For more than a century, they’ve met the growing needs of their community through innovation and the highest-quality medical care. St. Joseph Hospital combines leading-edge technologies with personalized medicine to lead the way in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease.When St. Joseph Hospital’s parent health system, Covenant Health, shared that they were exploring a system-wide technology and service solution for connecting patients to medical financial aid funding, the team at St. Joseph Hospital was intrigued and excited. St. Joseph Hospital leadership was aware of thousands of programs that provide more than $30 billion in medical financial aid every year to eligible patients. However, with no team members focusing full-time on enrolling patients in these programs, they needed a way to fill the gap.
THE SOLUTION: ATLAS HEALTH
John Jurczyk, president of St. Joseph Hospital, saw a demo of Atlas Health’s software and learned about their mission to leave no patient behind due to an inability to afford care.He quickly recognized Atlas as a dedicated and like-minded organization. The breadth of the program database, empathetic and tenacious patient advocates and thoughtfully designed workflow automation made Atlas the medical financial aid technology and service solution of choice at St. Joseph Hospital and other Covenant system hospitals.
THE RESULTS
When Ms. Bell, a patient at St. Joseph Hospital, was prescribed Xolair by her pulmonologist for severe persistent asthma, she assumed insurance would cover it. But after her second infusion treatment, she received a bill for over $6,000 that insurance would not cover. Even though severe persistent asthma symptoms occur daily and without treatment can leave individuals with lung function less than 60% of the normal level, she was prepared to stop receiving treatment.Atlas’ technology leveraged all available clinical, financial, insurance and demographic data to match Ms. Bell to the ideal assistance program. After a quick review of the case in the Atlas portal, patient advocate Heather Marcheterre contacted Ms. Bell to let her know she could enroll her in a patient assistance program. By enrolling Ms. Bell, Heather didn’t just help her afford her treatment but made sure she didn’t have to worry about any out-of-pocket costs whatsoever.With the $6,000 bill reduced to $0, Ms. Bell could breathe a little easier.
In less than six months, St. Joseph Hospital has secured more than $1 million in aid to help morethan 60 patients like Ms. Bell afford the care they need. With Atlas fully ramped, they’re on track to secure more than $2.7 million in aid for their patients during the first year of the partnership with additional reimbursement opportunities for additional Covenant Health hospitals.
