Monogram Health and Cigna Launch National Kidney Benefit Management Program
Program Now Covers 18 States Where Cigna Individual MA Customers Live
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — March 10, 2021 — Monogram Health announced today that it has expanded its in-home kidney benefit management program to Cigna Medicare Advantage customers in 11 new states, providing convenient, personalized care to help people manage chronic kidney disease (CKD) and End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
The program is now available to Cigna's individual MA customers in most of Florida as well as Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado and the District of Columbia. It was previously available to individual MA customers in Arkansas, Arizona, Alabama/North Florida, Mississippi, Tennessee and Georgia.
“Monogram’s care managers provide qualifying Cigna customers across the country with in-home, personalized services that help them access the health care they need and deserve,” said Senator Bill Frist, M.D., Monogram Health’s board chairman. “Our organizations share a commitment to evidence-based renal care and improved health outcomes for those people with chronic kidney disease and end- stage renal disease.”
Monogram’s benefit management staff of nurse case managers and social workers regularly visit CKD and ESRD patients in their homes. The organization’s field staff works with Monogram physicians and nurses to develop personalized care plans aimed at keeping customers with kidney disease healthy and out of the hospital. Benefit management strategies include medication therapy management, co-morbidity management and collaboration with nephrologists and primary care physicians on evidence-based renal care pathways. Care plans also focus on addressing patients’ social determinants of health.
“Working with Monogram Health, Cigna is taking a personal, individualized approach to raising the quality of care for our customers with CKD and ESRD," said Dr. Gina Conflitti, Cigna Medicare Advantage's chief medical officer. "Cigna wants our customers with kidney disease to know all of their care options. We will work to help them receive evidence-based treatment that maximizes their health and quality of life."
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 20 percent – or $114 billion – of traditional Medicare expenditures go toward Americans with kidney disease, a growing population that now totals more than 30 million. Improved outcomes, including reduced mortality rates after dialysis starts and increased use of home therapies, remain a priority for HHS and other governmental health care programs. Additionally, the 21st Century Cures Act allows previously ineligible Medicare beneficiaries with ESRD to enroll in a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan.
According to the U.S. Renal Data Systems, there are 746,557 Americans with ESRD, a number which grows by about 20,000 a year.
About Monogram Health
Monogram Health is a leading kidney-disease focused benefit management and care delivery company. It provides an innovative renal care model and data-driven array of clinical managed services, including complex case and disease management, utilization management and medication therapy management to transform the delivery of care received by patients living with chronic kidney and end-stage renal disease. Partnering with health plans, physician practices, dialysis providers and clinically integrated health systems, Monogram Health provides patients with exceptional at-home individualized clinical managed services and Nephrology care delivery. Through the use of next generation artificial intelligence, evidence-based criteria and personalized care planning, Monogram Health’s model seeks to delay the progression of the disease, promote a seamless transition to dialysis, palliative care and/or pre-emptive kidney transplant and optimize health outcomes for patients with end-stage renal disease. Based in Nashville, Tenn. and privately held by Frist Cressey Ventures and Norwest Venture Partners, Monogram Health currently operates its renal disease benefit management programs and care delivery across 20 states in the U.S. and has built a national network of nephrologists that includes hundreds of leading kidney care specialists. To learn more about Monogram Health, please visit here.