Breaking Barriers in Diabetes Care and GLP-1 Management with Diathrive

#006 In this episode of Healthcare Wayfinders, Michael Hennesey, founder of Diathrive, shares how his company is revolutionizing diabetes care with affordable diabetes testing supplies, personalized diabetes care programs, and a groundbreaking GLP-1 management solution. From tackling high costs to improving outcomes and patient engagement, Michael reveals innovative services that empower patients while saving their employers money on healthcare. Whether you’re managing diabetes, know someone who is, or are a self-insured employer seeking to improve employee health and cut costs, this conversation is a must-listen!

What You Will Learn:

• How Diathrive is making diabetes testing supplies more affordable and accessible for individuals.
• The benefits of personalized diabetes care programs for patients and employers.
• The challenges and opportunities surrounding GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and how Diathrive is addressing them.
• Why high costs and side effects lead many to discontinue GLP-1 medications—and how to overcome these barriers.
• The importance of proactive diabetes management and how it saves money for self-insured employers.
• Diathrive’s vision for improving chronic care through innovation, education, and data-driven solutions.

Contact the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast

• Email us at podcast@grassrootslabs.com

Special Thanks to:

• Seth Aten who produces the podcast.
• Grassroots Labs for sponsoring the show.

Review us on Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen. 

• Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3DEvJ6j 
• Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3PP9Owl
• YouTube: https://bit.ly/3DPhN9J

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey friends, and welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast, where we are routing you to more accessible and cost effective healthcare today. I'm thrilled to share my conversation with Michael Hennessy, founder of Diathrive. Michael's team is tackling diabetes care from every angle to improve affordability, accessibility, and outcomes. In today's podcast, we'll uncover how Diathrive provides low cost diabetes, testing supplies for individuals, runs impactful diabetes management programs that improve employee health while saving employers money, and an exciting new GLP 1 management program that they've designed to help patients succeed with these medications.

This is a conversation that you won't want to miss. Let's dive in.

Zach Aten: Michael, thank you so much for coming on the Dealthcare Wayfinders podcast. Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about Diathrive and what it does, and then we'll get into the, the how and why, you founded it.

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah, so Diathrive is a diabetes management solution for, for health plans. We have, health [00:01:00] plans as well as like self funded, you know, employer sponsored health plans. And, it provides for the individual, Essentially, unlimited clinical consultations with our Health advisors that are all who are all are at least RNs and certified diabetes care and education specialists and some of them have other degrees beyond that and then unlimited testing supplies They can test their blood sugar and then an app where they can self educate share their data and serves as the hub for scheduling, um, you know, shipments and clinical consultations.

So, and then for some customers we also facilitate continuous glucose monitors as well. That's kind of the, the core service for the, for the individuals and from the plan sponsor side. We up front do a claims analysis that we work with Milliman to refine and that essentially gives the plan sponsor an idea right from the beginning.

And you know, it takes in [00:02:00] pharmacy and medical claims data. And then we'll tell them, Hey, here's what your population looks like in terms of the number of people with diabetes. And then of those people with diabetes, how many of those people are actually managing it? And so then that's kind of the benchmark that we use going forward.

We want to try and improve the number of people managing it. And then of course, through our service, we're collecting. clinical data. And we kind of use that as a benchmark going forward as well.

Zach Aten: That's cool. So, if I'm understanding it correctly, you're providing value to the actual users to help them better manage their diabetes, which means they live a better life. And then from the employer's perspective, you're helping them to have a more healthy, Employee population, and especially those that are self funded, hopefully that means they're going to be spending, have to spend less money on care overall.

Is that correct?

Micheal Hennesey: That's right. Yeah. And and it's also helping the plan sponsor just really kind of do their [00:03:00] diligence on their own population because we found that a lot of the other kind of services that are out there are . Fairly high level. And when they drill down on something like diabetes, it turns out that a lot of the data that they're getting is not super accurate.

Number two, the other interesting thing is that because, you know, from gosh, you know, 12 years ago now from the affordable care act, a lot of people have essentially been pushed out of, or really are functionally uninsured.

Zach Aten: hmm. And so, you know, I'd say, you know, Diathrive kind of attacks it from two areas.

Micheal Hennesey: One is the plan design and one is the actual provision of benefits, right? And from the plan design perspective, I think we, we almost always, almost every one of our clients that launches, you know, they'll say, well, I have 100 people with diabetes or something like that. And fairly quickly after launch, they find out that it's actually quite a few more than that who [00:04:00] just have been really, like I say, functional.

I mean, if you have a $5,000 deductible and you're a teacher or you don't have any other kind of, normal salary job, gosh, that's a really big deductible. And so things like diabetes that maybe are, the chronic conditions that are kind of longer term , type things that don't cause you, pain in the moment.

It's not a broken arm. A lot of people tend to push off that care. And so we almost always find that, the way the population looks at, three months in is a lot different from at launch because we fix a lot of those kind of plan design issues where people have been pushed out of their plans because of the costs.

Zach Aten: Yeah, so you're saying that, because you're making, diabetes management more affordable. You wind up having more people participate in it and therefore are healthier and living better lives. Is that correct?

Micheal Hennesey: That's right. Yeah. Sometimes many more people just depending on [00:05:00] on the plan design and the deductible and things like that. So all of our benefits are 100 percent paid for by the plan and the individuals pay nothing. And so, whereas previously, you know, gosh, I mean, just to get to a certified diabetes care and education specialist under most plan designs, they're going to a primary care, you know, and to do that, of course, you have to make an appointment and you've got to pay a copay, you know, wait in the waiting room, pay a copay, go in and see the primary care.

Primary care says, yeah, you've got diabetes. I'm going to refer you to an endocrinologist. Sometimes, right? A lot of times they, those primary care will just try and manage it themselves. But then if you go to an endocrinologist, you've got to call. The average waiting time in this country is three months to get in to see an endocrinologist, just to get in to see the person.

And then you've got to wait in the waiting room and pay a co pay. And then, the endocrinologist, if they have a relationship with certified diabetes care and education specialists, [00:06:00] they'll also refer you to them. Usually can't see them the same day you've got a call, you've got to wait and you've got, uh, you know, going on the day of your appointment, pay a copay, and talk to them.

And so, you know, gosh, just that hassle alone, the administrative hassle, right of calling and, making three appointments, especially if you're, busy, working parent with kids that alone, can be a disincentive. And just kind of push people away from doing some of the baseline things that, um, that they ought to be doing to manage their diabetes.

Zach Aten: That is really cool. So I don't have diabetes, but my wife is a nurse practitioner at an endocrinology practice. That serves primarily folks with diabetes, and she talks about, this same difficult journey, for the patients that, you just described. And, you know, I hear the frustration from her, all the time, wishing that there would be some way for the [00:07:00] process to be easier for folks, to actually engage, right?

Because it can be, at least from what I've heard from her, between the cost and then the management hassles, like what you're talking about, it can really, disincentivize people to take a proactive, you know, approach to managing diabetes. Cause it's just, they're just running into roadblocks everywhere.

Micheal Hennesey: Right. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. You have that personal background that it's, it's really, what's also, I think really curious about healthcare in general is that, it tends to be looked at as like things on a whiteboard, deductibles and copays and, network structure and, and a benefit structure, a plan design, but. Yeah, that's fine. I guess that's one valuable thing to do to look at it that way. But man, when you start living it, it's just a totally different experience, right? And the guy who sits next to me, has type one. My best friend from high school was just [00:08:00] five or six years ago.

Now was diagnosed, you know, in his forties with adult onset type one. Almost every person that I've ever met, even with type one has just a horrible story about usually involving misdiagnosis. Another fellow here, his son in law. Same thing, just, recently misdiagnosed with type 2, turned out he had type 1, was, you know, given the wrong medications to take, told the wrong things, this happened to my best friend from high school too, so, so yeah, it's, once you have the personal background like you do, um, Boy, you start learning all these things and it's, um, you just think, why? Why is it structured this way? We really can do a lot better than this.

Zach Aten: Yeah, well, I think what you're just talking about there really leads us into, what's the why of Daya Thrive and why did you guys started and how did it come about? Because it sounds like it probably came from, your personal experience and those around you.

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah, it, it was pretty simple. I was running a [00:09:00] diabetes company that was part of just traditional healthcare. And we had a certified, we had an accredited diabetes education program and, gosh, I just watched, you know, talking to people at diabetes support groups and watching thousands of patients on their journeys.

it was just amazing. I mean, the efficacy of those programs, the engagement in those programs is so low all across the country. And you know, my wife's an educator and a lot of folks in our extended family are educators and it's an interesting phenomenon, right? In education, we blame the educators when the students don't learn and we pass things like no child left behind and, you know, and we blame the educators.

In healthcare, when the people who are receiving, products and services, Don't do things. We blame the patients. And all across the country, when you talk to people who administer diabetes programs, they will, they will almost to a [00:10:00] person blame the people, the patients for not doing the things that they tell them.

And, um, you know, gosh, right at the, as we were founding, starting Diathrive, I heard a guy named Bill Polonsky speak who's really our clinical, guru. And Bill he's, you know, been doing this for four decades or so and has diabetes himself. And it's really the number one person in the world on why people don't follow chronic disease management programs.

And he's been on the clinical advisory boards of a lot of diabetes related companies. And, And he kind of just in, you know, and I heard him speak several times and just thought to myself, this guy really, gets it and understands what's wrong with these programs. And then that kind of just all played into how we started Diathrive.

And it really comes down to the fact that like you say, and like, it sounds like your wife has told you. There are really barriers to, to, to people doing [00:11:00] things, all throughout the health care system. Uh, they're financial, they're administrative, and, one thing that Bill really, illuminated for me are the psychosocial, reasons that has to do not just with the patient psychosocial, approach to things and determinants of health, but, also the way that clinicians are trained, in this country, and how they approach, how they approach patients and some of that has to do with the structure of the health care system, right?

Where there's most people are in kind of a fee for service model where um, Where they they only have you know, most patients if you talk to them, you know How much time did you get with your endocrinologist? It's usually about three minutes, you know that they that they spent with them and So diabetes, as your wife's probably told you, is can be very complicated.

There's a lot of different permutations of the condition. And so, That, that really is why we started Diathrive. I just thought, gosh, we can make this simpler, easier, better for [00:12:00] both the plan sponsors and the patients who have diabetes who are covered by these plans and that was gosh in 2016 I think we opened our office.

So eight years ago this month.

Zach Aten: Wow. Congratulations.

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah. Thanks.

Zach Aten: That's awesome. So anybody who manages a health plan, or a self insured, business or organization, they should definitely reach out to you. What is your offering look like for just direct to consumer folks who, are going to find out about you through this podcast and, they either want to use your services or recommend it to folks that they know, how does that work?

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah, so Like you say, the health plans, generally find us through, because they're, they know that they have a problem with diabetes. They want to get more people engaged with diabetes. We do claims analysis up front and then, we'll guarantee savings to their plan based on that claims analysis.

And, have tons of case [00:13:00] studies and a track record now of getting a lot more people engaged, in managing their diabetes. The direct consumer folks hit us, just directly through the website and, the offer there we've, is basically just, higher quality , testing supplies at lower prices.

And you know, we've been tweaking that over the years. That's been an interesting case study in really, you know, plan design. I mean, on that side of the business, for example, 20 to 30 percent of the people actually are on Medicare, but can't get Medicare to cover enough testing supplies for what they need. Which is crazy, when you think about it, you know, that includes veterans speaking of veterans, today on veterans day. And then, another, 25 percent of them or so are underinsured but a lot of them just don't, have insurance that covers, testing supplies.

So that's the. That's the direct consumer, side of the business.

Zach Aten: Okay. So folks can get on your website, which will provide a link in the show notes. And they [00:14:00] can sign up for your product. It's sort of like a membership, right? Where they sign up for how many, how much testing supplies they want on a, Okay. Time period and it gets delivered to their door. Yeah,

Micheal Hennesey: right? 

Zach Aten: That's great. So definitely everybody, check out, Diathrive and the show notes. I've got another question for you and it might be, I'm not sure, if you guys are into this, but, The whole, explosion of GLP ones, right? And how that's, has been around for a while. I was, I think my wife and I listened to the WSJ podcast series about GLP ones.

And, you know, they've been around for seven or 10 years. She's been prescribing them for a while. But now, you know, they're this new hot thing, in the market, maybe speak to kind of again, sort of the, health care consumer audience here, but, are you guys involved in that at all?

Or how do you see that affecting kind of, you know, the industry going forward and how people's care is going to be?

Micheal Hennesey: [00:15:00] Yeah. We are actually just at this moment launching a GLP-1 solution because so many of our plan sponsors, have been concerned about it. You can see the impact on plans. Some of the, interesting publicly available data. You can, if you go and look at the Texas Retirement System, um, they have publicly available data right off their website.

They're, they're spending on GLP-1s went from like low $200 million to over $400 million in just one year. From 2022 to 2023. , we're hearing the same thing happen, all over the country and we've got over 600 health plans, that we work with and we're adding more constantly and, every single one of them, has had a problem with, with GLP 1.

So I'm glad you, I'm glad you raised it. I'm, and I'm glad that you have that background. Again, that's really fortunate with your wife type cause they're, they're not new, but you would almost think that they're new. Given some of the news stories and, and publicity around [00:16:00] them. I think, you know, the core issue for plans with GLP-1s is really, you know, are we going to cover them?

 and then if they want to cover them because of the demand from consumers, then the problem becomes how do we manage this? And the state of Texas is, you know, just, just one example, but every, health plan in the country sees this happen where they go in and there really isn't an effective system for figuring out, for regulating this and, the way that the, as you and your wife know, I mean, the way that this, that the healthcare system is set up, you know, people go in and ask for a script.

I mean, the doctor doesn't want to lose the patient, uh, you know, unless it's really contraindicated. For some reason, you know, physicians are really willing to give, prescriptions. And so, that has caused an explosion in costs for health plans. What we're doing is kind of applying the same principles that we applied to Diabetes management in terms of trying to, remove barriers to people, but also get people [00:17:00] engaged and accountable in the process.

And so in our GLP-1 solution, it's a way for plans to, really make sure that the people who are getting GLP 1s have a medical, need for them. Our service starts off with a, an at home blood test that somebody puts on their arm and then returns and within a week or two, get results back that are reviewed by a physician, to make sure that they don't have any of the things that, you know, would contraindicate GLP-1s they qualify if they, on a blood test measure qualify and look like they'd be a good candidate, the physician actually does, an interview, a live, you know, zoom interview just like this with them, to talk through, you know, it turns out that, after you look at just the cost of GLP 1s, the next really big problem is discontinuation rates.

And your wife will probably tell you about this. There was just a study published in May. The data that was talked about at the American Diabetes Association scientific meetings [00:18:00] found discontinuation rates of over 60 percent on, Ozempic and on other, the stronger classes of GLP 1s, over 80 percent discontinuation rates after a year. So the problem with that and what we're hearing from our health plan customers is that, you know, they pay.

A lot for these medications. As you know, they can, they can spend, you know, $2-$3,000 I read a story in the Wall Street Journal about, you know, Hollywood stars that were, were paying $3,000 a month for these types of medications, right? So they're spending, you know, $20,000 for these medications for somebody.

And if they then discontinue it after a year, What we're finding is that people end up putting on, you know, first of all, they, they've, they've lost muscle mass and then within three to six months after just continuing them, they end up putting on more weight. And so our health plan clients are coming to us and saying, [00:19:00] you know, I just spent $20,000 to make my member sicker.

And, um, and what can we do about that? And so. to get back to our solution in the interview with the physician, the physician is going to, you know, kind of tell them, tell the person what to expect, you know, , and of course we're applying FDA criteria to the blood test and the physicians making sure that they have a medically necessary condition.

Because if you look by the way now on a lot of our populations, over 40 percent of people would qualify, for GLP ones. Just on a BMI standard. And now you and your wife have probably seen, they're getting approved for Alzheimer's and ADHD and approved for adolescence and, things like that.

So that the, the range of people who could potentially be on them and they're really designed. These medications are designed for people beyond them all of their lives. So for health plans, this is just, uh, financially catastrophic increase in costs for people. And what our solution [00:20:00] is trying to do is say, Hey, you know, let's apply some FDA criteria.

Um, up front, let's up front give people training so that they don't discontinue them and then on an ongoing basis, we actually proctor and our health plans will only cover these medications if the members, at least 75 percent of the time, do proctored injections. And what that means is that a Diathrive proctor is on the phone with them, verifies their identification, verifies that they're taking the right medication and it has them step on a scale records their weight and then actually watches them inject the medication.

And of course can talk to them about, Hey, what symptoms are you having? And try and head off the discontinuation rates. So that you know, so they know what they're getting into up front and then as symptoms evolve because as I'm sure your wife has told you, the, the titration schedules on these things are pretty dramatic and you can have pretty dramatic changes month to month based on [00:21:00] the increase in your dosage.

So our proctoring service is designed to kind of catch those things and help the member. With the side effects that they might be experiencing and try and help them get on a healthy, you know, path with GLP-1s so that they don't, take them, and then just drop them cold turkey and have wasted all that personal effort by the member and of course wasted the plans, money, during their journey.

So that's kind of the, that's the way that we've approached. GLP-1s. But yeah, I don't know that people appreciate how, the impact that it's having on health plans. I mean, it's really very dramatic all across the country.

Zach Aten: that's so interesting. I should have done this at the beginning, but for our audience, GLP-1s are like ozempric, are medications that have been traditionally prescribed for folks with diabetes and some other health care issues that help them lose weight, which helps with their different conditions, make them more manageable.

That's a huge generalization. [00:22:00] But they're becoming more, used basically as a, just as a weight loss, drug and kind of connecting back to what you were saying, my assumption with the cost increases that You know, and you said it before. Lots of different people are asking for these drugs.

Doctors are in general giving them prescriptions for them, which is driving up the cost. You were talking about, the rate that people stop taking the drugs. Do you have data on? is that a side effects thing? Is that a cost thing? Why would people, if something, if a drug helps people lose weight and feel better, quote unquote, why would people stop taking it?

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah. And I think that you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the, I think the big two reasons that are cited is cost because these are, they're hugely expensive, medications. And then just patient dissatisfaction is the broad category, that I saw in the American Diabetes Association scientific meeting.

 Like I say, the titration schedule [00:23:00] is pretty steep. So people go from, you know, two and a half milligrams to 15 milligrams, pretty quickly. And so if they don't have, kind of guidance along the way beyond just periodic, you know, fee for service doctor visits, and if they don't have, you know, resources, that are readily available without a lot of the barriers that we talked about at the beginning.

It can be a rough journey for people. And, you know, the thing that we found anecdotally is just that, the range of it's not, and just like diabetes itself, the GLP 1 journey is not really the same for every person. For example, we have a health plan where two of the senior leaders of the plan are both on Ozempic.

Have both been taking it for over a year. Neither one of them has lost a pound. Neither one of them has seen any difference in weight and I was shocked when they told me that they were taking them because they don't look any different. But their blood sugar has come, gotten under fabulous.

They both have type two diabetes and their blood [00:24:00] sugar control has been fabulous as a result of them. On the other hand, I have, you know, my, my own barber over the last year has lost 120 pounds.

Zach Aten: Wow.

Micheal Hennesey: Right, taking, taking ozempic and you know, it's changed his life and he's been very diligent about making some lifestyle changes.

Which is the other thing that our service tries to promote in people because I think if you try to maintain you know, your same diet and, and kind of same routine and think that you can just take GLP-1s, your your chances of, of getting, of not being able to continue the medication are really high because, um, you know, it does, it causes some paralysis of the of the digestive system.

Um, it slows it way down. That's, and then you have a feeling of, you know, they call it satiety, you know, 

Zach Aten: You're full, faster, longer.

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah. You, you feel full for faster and, and then for a longer period of time. Um, and so, [00:25:00] you know, there are certain foods that you don't really want that feeling. Um, you want those foods to go through you.

So, So those, those types of things, are behind the discontinuation, right? It's cost and then it's the side effects. And frankly, the other thing I think that plays into it is, for people who are not on a service like ours is the shortages, um, across the country of endocrinologists and primary care physicians.

You know, you're, If you're only talking to somebody every 90 days, um, about this medication and you're on the typical, the usual titration schedule that can get out of control really quickly and, you know, then you stop it and, you know, you got to wait a couple of months to get in and see somebody.

Zach Aten: Yeah. You, you talked about it briefly. On your program. What's, what's the process that you help take people through who are on GLP one so that they have a better experience. And maybe you're set up for more, you know, long term [00:26:00] success because that was one of the things when my wife and I were talking about it of, you know, these can be incredible tools, but at the end of the day, they can't change the underlying causes of what's going on.

So how does your service , help folks who are on GLP-1s have a more successful journey, I should say.

Micheal Hennesey: Yeah, there's three or four things. Number one is just upfront, the education upfront, you know, why do you want to be on a GLP-1 and what are you expecting to get out of it? You know, if you're, just trying to lose 10 pounds, uh, I don't know, you know, for, for the summer, to look better on the beach or something like that, that's probably not a good reason to, get on a GLP-1.

And then it's a, but for people who do qualify, then it's an education of, you know, well, here's what you should expect from the side effects. That's, that's the second thing. Um, and, and like I said, understanding that just because your neighbor had X experience with GLP-1s that has nothing to do with [00:27:00] your experience.

and here's some, there's a pretty long list of potential, things to look at and think about and to stay in close touch with somebody about. And then the third thing is just, as through the keeping doing the proctored weekly injections, I think is really important because then the proctor can keep tabs on like, you know, what is happening on a, on a weekly basis as dosages might, go up or potentially have to come down depending on what's happened.

And then. The fourth thing is, again, getting back to a structural health care problems that we have is, hey, if somebody talks to one of our proctors and they have a problem and we have them do a brief, written thing to every week just to, to clue us into some things.

But then when the proctor talks to them, if they have a medical issue, they're talking to a physician right away. And so, you know, just trying to, again, make healthcare. Easier, faster, more better, more intuitive, for people, [00:28:00] right? I mean, if you have a problem, these days, like my, my friend here, his son in law, you know, the primary care told him to go see an endocrinologist.

Then he found out that it was seven weeks until he could go see the endocrinologist. I mean, it's like, that that doesn't really work very well, especially when you're on medications like this, where some of the side effects can be really dramatic. And uncomfortable for people. So those are some of the ways, some of the ways we try to address address GLP-1s with people.

And, again, part of it's just providing resources to people immediately hacking the existing healthcare system. But you know, on the other side, we have the financial data to show the plans like, Hey, this, this really makes sense for you. You know, you can either just, Give everybody a GLP-1 and, you know, let them have at it.

Or you can have a more structured kind of curated experience for people that. You know, gives them a better chance of being successful in the long term. And of course, it turns out that if you're wise about how [00:29:00] you invest health care dollars, you know, that's how you think about things, right, is over the longer term.

And, and you think about things like engagement rates and, the efficacy of the, of the overall program. so we've been fortunate to partner with a lot of, and find a lot of people across the country that are. Really, tired of the traditional kind of big healthcare monopoly driven approach and broker approach and who are structuring their own, taking charge of their own benefits and looking at data and want to do the right thing for their members which, and in our case, and in a lot of other cases with other conditions too, doing the right thing also Is the better thing financially for the plan, it turns out, which is, one of many paradoxes in health care.

Zach Aten: Yeah, which hopefully would drive down more costs, right? For the end users, healthcare consumers. You said that this GLP one program that you have is primarily here at launch for plans. Are you [00:30:00] are you planning to have a direct consumer option? Or how would somebody who's just, You know, a healthcare consumer, are they able to access a tool like that?

Micheal Hennesey: know we haven't, launched anything direct to consumers and just to be clear, we're just in the process of doing some beta, customers with this on the plan side, and the reason why we haven't, been able to, or wanted to get into the business on the. On the consumer side is just that the, farm, we have partnerships with pharmacy benefit managers, and as you know, they're one of the most powerful, you know, interest groups in health care and, we have a solution that saves plan money and provides a better member experience, but it requires some, discipline, on the side of the plan, for example, You know, if somebody is going to get a glp one, they have to come through Diathrive health, to get this kind of curated experience that I described, when we don't have, those kinds of controls on [00:31:00] people, to where we're getting claims data, we're knowing what they're doing.

It's, you know, on which we don't have on the direct consumer side, it's a lot harder to come up with an experience that, I guess that aligns with our values of, really trying to, provide a value and efficacy for people is just harder when you're not kind of connected to the back end of a health plan and, and can track people.

And they get more data in,

Zach Aten: Alright, so it sounds like, sounds like the answer is, pay attention to your healthcare benefits and look for Diathrive, because you're gonna, you're gonna get some real value there. Before we end, I always like to ask folks, what's y'all's big, hairy, audacious goal that you want to see happen in 5 to 10 years?

What are y'all, what are y'all going after? What do you want to see different in healthcare?

Micheal Hennesey: there are a lot of things I want to see that are different in healthcare. Diathribe's goal is to, get a million covered lives, here in the next three to five years. But, I think [00:32:00] that, as we've been evolving, the big trend that we're seeing is that I think that, as, particularly as some of these, AI driven, tools come on board for us getting data from our plan partners, I think we're going to see a much, bigger, ability for, and we're working on this now, ability to connect people's, every day decisions, and not just the members, but also, the plans, connect their decisions with the risk, in, in the population, because, you know, for example, one of the things that.

Caused us to start Diathrive was just this realization that, wow, you know, the simple things that people can do to manage chronic conditions. There's no reimbursement for those things. You know, your, your wife would probably tell you, I mean, all across, I was living in central Florida, at the time and all across central Florida, they were shutting down these diabetes education programs and a lot of times they're using the extra space to put in cardiac [00:33:00] beds.

And so there's this, there, and there, there was just no reimbursement. And so in some ways you can't blame the healthcare systems for shutting down these programs because the reimbursement is almost nothing, but the reimbursement for the heart attacks and the strokes to which diabetes is a main contributing factor, you know, are through the roof.

And that's what drives the. You know, drives the bottom line for these hospitals, unfortunately. And so, I hope that as we, get better and things like the CAA, the Consolidated Appropriations Act that was passed, in 2021 have made firmer and made more explicit the responsibilities of the fiduciaries managing these plans.

I hope that now that they know that they've, they've got an obligation to look at their population, to understand the data of their population, and then to bring in solutions that address their population's needs. as we get in more data too, we'll start to see, well, this is what happens to a person for whom you don't have, great [00:34:00] services like Diathrive that really are best to start when you don't have symptoms, when you don't have really bad symptoms, right?

Because once you've progressed kind of along the, the continuum of care of diabetes and you know, there's a point in which you can get just too far. Down to where there's really not a lot that we can do. You're having limbs amputated and all these, you know, terrible health outcomes that are terrible physically and psychologically and lots of other ways.

Whereas if we'd started, you know, all the way back at kind of at the beginning of the journey, you could just make a few little decisions that would have a massive impact down the road. So I hope that Um, and, and, and we're working to incorporate data into our solution in a way that, that we can make that explicit for plan sponsors and show them, Hey, these things are, won't just save you money in the present day, which we currently do for health plans.

But also, that by getting people, more people [00:35:00] engaged and managing their diabetes, that, that is the, is the right thing to do, you know, today. For right, you know, for out in the future, because if you think about it right now, a lot of these health plans are structured almost explicitly. And especially when you're talking about high deductible plans, right?

There's incentives in place to where we're really just foisting all of these problems on the Medicare and Medicaid. For when people stop working, and really the way that we get healthier as a country is if we pull, more of the data in to be able to show, you know, yeah, you're here, but here's where you're headed, in terms of risk, because risk and health care essentially equates to cost, and, so that's, that's kind of some, preview of coming attractions in the next two to three years that we want to come out with to our, taking all the data that we've now gathered from hundreds of plans and thousands of people and, working that into our solution so that we can work with the plans to even further, incentivize and focus members [00:36:00] on, you know, making a few better, and helping them make a few better, healthier, choices today so that they're, healthier over the longer term.

Zach Aten: That's awesome. Well, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the Healthcare Wayfinder show. Appreciate all your work helping to make diabetes testing supplies more affordable and accessible and, um, here soon helping people have a better experience on GLP-1s. So thank you for coming on the show.

Micheal Hennesey: Thanks, Zach. I really appreciate it.