Keeping employees healthy drives growth

lstevens@mbusinessreview.com

Pathway Review Systems Inc., a Farmington Hills-based subsidiary of Michigan Peer Review Organization, anticipates 40 percent growth next year, thanks to its acquisition of the medical management and wellness services of a Grand Rapids consulting company.

The acquisitions of $1.3 million in commercial contracts from HHS Health Options were announced April 20. MPRO, a not-for-profit corporation, had annual sales of roughly $11.5 million last year from its multi-state government contracts. With the acquisition, for-profit Pathway Review has clients in all 50 states. Its main offices will be in Grand Rapids and Farmington Hills.

"We wanted to have west-side presence in the state of Michigan. That's a big thing for our company," said Daniel Van Ackeren, vice president of marketing and business development for MPRO. "I think the west side has incredible opportunities, the growth opportunities are enormous and we're extremely bullish on it."

The expanding medical treatment and research infrastructure in the Grand Rapids area is the main attraction, Van Ackeren said. That infrastructure offers a growing array of potential strategic partners for the new company.

The services acquired from HHS Health Options are variations on the large-case management process, according to HHS's Douglas Nagel, now director of business development and client relations for Pathway Review. To date, the customer base has encompassed primarily self-insured companies, ranging in size from 65 to more that 5,000 employees.

"In disease management, we work to identify members who may have a chronic condition, or in the case of wellness, risk factors for a chronic condition," Nagel explained. "The patient has kind of a dedicated nurse to help them understand the condition and deal with it."

The nurse is available by telephone to the patient, working from Grand Rapids in a medical parallel to a customer call center.

Some people prefer to work face-to-face with a nurse-mentor, Van Ackeren said. Multiple approaches will be offered.

Information from health appraisals the company administers, biometric screenings, medical and pharmaceutical claims histories and data mining software help identify which employees may be the next high-risk/high-cost plan member. The data mining is able to distinguish, for example, between a diabetic who is managing the disease and one who is not, Nagel said.

"We use that to guide their health care to hopefully prevent some of these high-risk/large-cost events in the future," Nagel said.

Programs are custom-designed for each client company, he said. Pathway Review presently has nearly 100.

"We do significant work to identify barriers to the right care, to identify what can we do to remove those barriers. And then we implement programs that will basically remove the barriers, increase the overall health of the group, with the long-term goal of decreasing cost," Nagel said. "The services we offer are built to be a custom solution, so a group can buy all or part of them, phase services in over time and implement the pieces the group needs."