For years, health plans have wrestled with a persistent “last-mile” challenge: how to reliably help their most socially isolated members. While digital outreach and fragmented care management have tried to bridge the gap for health plan members, they often fail to address the tangible, human barriers that prevent people from attending doctor appointments, scheduling preventive visits, adhering to medications, or following instructions after a hospital discharge.
Now 15,000+ Papa Pals could be a big part of the solution.
Today, Papa, a national leader in at-home support, announced a significant evolution of its model with the launch of Papa Plus. This new offering integrates the Miami-based startup’s signature companion care service with targeted quality programs, turning the “nice-to-have” benefit of a friendly visit into a “must-have” strategic channel for health plans to drive measurable clinical outcomes.
The core of Papa Plus lies in Papa’s nationwide network of Papa Pals, which are fully vetted and trained adults with personal caregiving experience. They provide companionship and everyday help to older adults and other underserved populations; and they have logged more than 3 million visits across 10,000 cities.
“We built such amazing trust between our Pals and members, and we want to be able to help [members] as much as possible,” Papa founder and CEO Andrew Parker said in a December interview with Refresh Miami. “We’ve added a lot of capabilities to be not just a companion, but also someone that helps move the needle on that person’s healthcare needs and ultimately helps to lower costs for the healthcare providers and deliver outcomes for the members. It’s a win, win, win.”
Papa Plus is part of what Parker calls Papa’s “phase two,” an expansion that moves the company way beyond companionship alone and into a broader, more measurable role in healthcare delivery.
Through Papa Plus, Pals can now help with scheduling and accompanying members to annual wellness visits. They also can help members after a hospital stay to reduce the risk of readmission, and they can help members navigate telehealth platforms to improve healthcare access.
“Papa was founded on the belief that human connection is essential to improving health and driving better outcomes. Our health plan partners have seen that same truth and increasingly look to Papa to help address engagement, quality, and performance priorities. Papa Plus is the culmination of those partnerships and the natural evolution of Papa’s proven companion care model,” Parker said in today’s announcement.
By integrating Papa’s established companion care services with targeted quality programs aligned to health plans’ objectives, Papa Plus combines in-person, member-directed social support with plan-directed activities designed to advance quality performance.
Health plans have flexibility in how they deploy Papa, said Austin Weaver, Papa’s Senior Vice President of Healthcare Strategy. The engagement pathways that power Papa Plus are now part of Papa’s core offering and can be activated for any health plan or member population. While plans may focus on companion care initially, they have the option to activate quality pathways over time as their needs evolve, Weaver explained, and Papa is seeing increasing interest in the full Papa Plus model to dually support member and quality needs with a single solution.
“Health plans are no longer questioning if they should engage members at home, but how to do it reliably, safely, simply and at scale,” said Weaver. “Papa is the only non-clinical solution that can connect a member with a trusted Pal in person to help close plan-identified care gaps or support post-discharge follow-through.”
READ MORE IN REFRESH MIAMI:
- How Papa is turning companion care into a healthcare must-have
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- ILiAD Biotechnologies of Weston raises $115M to advance whooping cough vaccine
- Meet the startups shaping the future of healthcare, from Miami to the world
- Insightec spins out Lotus Neuro to advance brain therapies that tackle ‘a huge unmet need’
