CPC & CBEx 2024: Strategies for Patient Navigation Services

A panel of experts shared different strategies for implementing patient navigation services during a session at the 2024 Clinical Pathways Congress + Cancer Care Business Exchange. Kathryn Paliotta, RN, New York Cancer & Blood Specialists (NYCBC), began the conversation by summarizing how electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePROs) are used at NYCBC to increase continuity or care with respect to patient preferences and help to increase access to care. The ePRO, launched in October 2023 with Canopy, has a silent reporting feature and is able to continuously capture data and build a unique baseline for each patient. In addition, the tool ties in NYCBC’s chronic care management program as it has been built into monthly wellness calls and checking in on patients’ health statuses for those who are eligible. “The largest benefit we've seen in terms of continuity of care has been merging that communication gap from last clinic visit to next clinic visit. The ePRO gives us an opportunity to keep in touch with these patients while we're not physically seeing them in the office,” said Paliotta. In the future, the institution would like to optimize this tool across its practices and use it to update prior authorization statuses, which can decrease the volume for the call center. When trying to implement or improve patient navigation services, providers face various barriers. Payers, for instance, can introduce barriers to patient navigation, according to Oubre. Although payers want the implementation of value-based care models—such as Principal Care Management—there are co-pays attached to them, which can be a hurdle to continuous participation.

Kathy Oubre, MS, Pontchartrain Cancer Center, noted that when new technology and processes are introduced, typically staff must be certified in order to participate in these workflows. Leadership must weigh the options of hiring an employee who is already certified or sponsoring a current employee’s education/training. “You can invest in staff education, but it’s four figures per person. You also have to think about employee retention,” added Susan Sabo-Wagner, MSN, RN, American Oncology Network.

The speakers also discussed the challenge and importance of stakeholder and staff buy-in for patient navigation services to succeed. Everyone involved should understand the need for these services or new tools and how they benefit the patients and the practice. Oubre suggested building the use of technology tools into the regular cadence of workflow and learn how eligible patients and payers feel about it. How patients feel about the system can impact their enrollment. For example, they may get frustrated in receiving too many phone calls from practices or answering repeated questions. To prevent this frustration, NYCBC does extensive training with their staff to personalize the call experience for patients. These efforts have paid off as they’ve seen improvements in this area with a 60% engagement rate. “There’s an advantage to taking extra, empathic steps to engage the patients and have more meaningful conversations and add value to the program and the patients,” said Paliotta.

The speakers concluded that patient navigation services vary for every institution or practice as they must adapt to their patient populations needs and feedback. Providers should also consider what specific problem(s) need to be addressed when selecting a software/system to use for their services.

Reference

Chavez N, Sabo-Wagner S, Oubre K, Paliotta K. Strategies for patient navigation services. Presented at the Clinical Pathways Congress; September 6, 2024; Boston, MA.