On this episode of Tell Me Where It Hurts, Dr. Jay Anders, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Medicomp Systems, talks with Matt Ethington, co-founder and CEO of ChronicCareIQ, who may be the only entrepreneur who wishes his company would go out of business. Ethington tells Dr. Anders that an optimally healthy population would have little need for a company that helps physicians manage chronic disease between office visits. That outcome remains distant, however, given 90% of the nation’s $5.3 trillion in annual healthcare spending is for chronic and mental health conditions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ethington’s own path into healthcare began with a chronic condition. Diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 30 and told he was days away from a coma, he went home overwhelmed by the self-care ahead of him and, within 60 days, began volunteering in an oncology clinic. There, he was struck by both the dedication of the staff and the limitations of their software. As a result, he founded simplifyMD, a cloud-based electronic health record (EHR), and later ChronicCareIQ.
In Ethington’s view, most of the difficulty in chronic care stems from communication, not care. Ethington says ChronicCareIQ addresses this by connecting to the practice’s EHR, identifying high-risk patients with multiple conditions or complex medication regimens, and sending them or their caregivers a few short questions by text or app. Dr. Anders has seen the value of regular check-ins firsthand. Years before unified chronic care management programs existed, he arranged monthly calls from his nurse to a patient with a seizure disorder who had been regularly admitted through the emergency department after skipping her medication. Once the check-ins began, she stopped returning to the hospital.
“Patients get in trouble in their living room, not in the exam room. We’re trying to get that information to the right people at the right time.”
Matt Ethington, Co-Founder and CEO, ChronicCareIQ
Beyond patient responses, the platform draws on EHR timestamps and practice phone logs. Ethington tells Dr. Anders that changes in the frequency and duration of a patient’s calls can signal rising risk on their own, particularly in larger health systems, where a patient might call a cardiologist’s office three times and an internist’s office four times without either department recognizing the pattern.
Medicare has increased payments and added codes for non-face-to-face care management. Ethington estimates this can add $13,000 to $15,000 per physician per month for a practice. Ethington reports that 87% of patients who begin answering ChronicCareIQ questions are still responding a year later, based on the company’s own data.
Remote monitoring between visits is becoming routine in chronic care, and Ethington expects the number of connected patients to rise sharply within three to five years.
Show Notes
Among the topics covered:
- Matt Ethington’s path from a type 1 diabetes diagnosis to healthcare technology
- Chronic care communication challenges between doctors and patients
- Red, yellow and green risk status to guide nurse outreach
- Phone call patterns as an early signal of rising risk
- Medicare reimbursement for non-face-to-face care management
- Type 2 diabetes, heart failure and chronic kidney disease as the conditions ChronicCareIQ monitors most often
- A magic wand wish for less suffering in healthcare
- And more…
Show Links
- Matt Ethington on LinkedIn
- ChronicCareIQ
- Dr. Jay Anders on LinkedIn
- Medicomp Systems on LinkedIn
- Tell Me Where IT Hurts on Healthcare NOW Radio