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March – April 2019
5 questions with Dr. Aaron Friedkin
Aaron Friedkin, M.D., vice president, Clinical Strategies, Health Plan Business, has been with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan for nearly two years. A pediatric radiologist at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota from 2010 to 2014, he later held positions as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company and medical director, Key Accounts with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota before coming to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
He recently talked to us about how his previous positions influence his current job and his goals for the future.
1. What was your area of focus at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota?
As medical director for Key Accounts, I had the opportunity to learn firsthand about the needs and expectations of large self-funded employers regarding health care. I worked with the HR departments of multiple Fortune 500 companies that were responsible for managing the health care of their employees. Health care was one of these organizations’ biggest expenses, and affordability was top of mind for them and one of their biggest challenges. I was able to work with these employers on strategies to improve the health and well-being of their employees and families while addressing affordability.
2. Can you talk about your current job?
I was brought to Blue Cross to provide a clinical perspective to our commercial business unit (Health Plan Business) while bringing the voice of the customer to our health care delivery unit (Health Care Value). I’ve been charged with developing strategies and clinical solutions to improve our members’ health, address customer needs and help manage costs.
3. How do you determine and meet customer needs?
My experience working at McKinsey & Company helped me understand how to analyze data to identify and address complex problems. Historically, health plans primarily assessed data from a service category perspective — looking at inpatient spend versus outpatient spend, for example. Today we’re looking at data in different ways to determine what exactly is driving a customer’s health care spend — what specific conditions or categories of spending are impacting an employer’s population. Using this approach, we know that around 20 percent of our total commercial spend is related to the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal conditions. As a result, we’re now working on developing comprehensive solutions to address musculoskeletal issues for our members.
Today we’re looking at data in different ways to determine what exactly is driving a customer’s health care spend — what specific conditions or categories of spending are impacting an employer’s population.
This is similar to work we led to identify the impact of diabetes on our population. As a result of our efforts, we’ve implemented a series of programs to not only manage diabetes but to help prevent it from occurring. (Editor’s note: You can read more about these programs in an article in the February Record.)
4. Can you give us an idea of what’s coming in the future?
We’re currently implementing a new care management program — one that will allow us to work more closely with health care providers than our previous care management programs. We realize that for care management to be truly successful, we must partner with physicians and their care teams who are on the front lines of patient care. While the program won’t launch until 2020, we expect to start rolling out details to providers this summer.
5. If you could give some advice to physicians or hospital executives, based on your experience, what would it be?
The expectations of our group customers, or employers, around the affordability of health care have increased significantly over the past few years. They’re looking to Blue Cross and our network of health care providers to implement new tactics to lower the cost of health care. For example, if a health care service or procedure is less costly at one site of care compared to another, they want us to let them know about it. They’re looking for affordable care and are apt to look elsewhere if they feel that Blue Cross and its network of providers aren’t providing value. Given the significant financial pressures these customers face, they’ve become much more sophisticated, and they scrutinize the cost and quality of care that’s being delivered to their employees and families. It’s important that we, as a company and a network of providers, meet their needs to remain viable in the marketplace. If you have any additional questions for Dr. Friedkin, send them to provcomm@bcbsm.com and we’ll get answers for you. Put question for Dr. Friedkin in the subject line.
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