Signify recently acquired PatientBlox, a tech firm with blockchain and DLT expertise
Signify Health is a US-based provider of technology-enabled healthcare solutions. They aim to transform healthcare delivery through their episodes-of-care model, which uses analytics and innovative payment models to keep people healthy at home. An episode of care is a series of interactions between patients and providers that constitute a health care treatment. Payment can be made simpler and clearer when these interactions are stored on the blockchain without the need for fee-for-service claims.
The healthcare firm announced yesterday they had acquired PatientBlox, a tech firm with experience of deploying blockchain and distributed ledger technology (DLT) in healthcare and life sciences.
Kyle Armbrester, CEO of Signify, commented “We are excited to enhance our leading value-based payment platform with this first-of-its-kind prospective capability and the greater predictability and accountability that come with it. We are already powering the nation’s most innovative payment programs, and this capability opens up significant opportunities to create and support new programs and market entrants.”
Signify’s value-based care platform harvests patient data and stores it in transparent records, as well as building accountable networks that link payers with care providers. They also employ their unique Episode Connect software to deliver decision support to physicians, caregivers and patients. Signify Health already supports $6 billion worth of annual healthcare spend through episodes of care payment plans and the federal government’s bundled payment program, and with the integration of PatientBlox technology, they will be able to offer a more diverse array of payment options while streamlining provider administration.
PatientBlox Co-founder and CEO Rahul Sharma said of the acquisition:
“We combined our team’s healthcare, fintech, and supply chain experience with machine-learning and Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) to build the PatientBlox platform for administration and management of prospective bundles. Our DLT based platform enables collaboration between Healthcare Payers and Providers and provides real time data synchronization across entities thus enabling rapid scaling of prospective bundled payment programs.”
It is hoped that the addition of blockchain technology will improve care coordination, outcomes and cost savings by driving care redesign through shared measurement and accountability at every step of each patient’s care journey.