Regence leaders explore issues at State of Reform conference in Seattle

By Regence
January 25, 2019
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Regence was proud to be a sponsor of this month’s State of Reform conference in Seattle. More than 800 health care industry leaders – payers, providers and all other levels of the industry – gathered at the Westin Seattle to discuss the most pressing issues in Washington health care.   

Watch the video below for highlights from the conference. As Dr. Jim Polo, Regence BlueShield’s Medical Director for Behavioral Health, says at the 1:20 mark of the video: “Health care is a very complex industry. It really needs a collaborative approach…(State of Reform) is a conference that brings everybody to the table and allows discussion and interchange to occur.”

Dr. Polo and Brodie Dychinco, Regence’s General Manager of Convenient Care Delivery, participated in panel discussions at State of Reform, on the future of telehealth and combating the opioid crisis.

Both Dychinco and Dr. Polo elaborated on their State of Reform appearances in articles on LinkedIn. Dychinco delved into Regence research on how telehealth produces real savings for our members. When a Regence member with a commercial, non-Medicare policy uses telehealth, they save an average of $90 out-of-pocket on associated medical bills, and $32 in saved time and travel. (“Lessons learned after three years of living and breathing telehealth,” Jan. 17).   

Dr. Polo, meanwhile, wrote about the need for collaboration in fighting the state and national opioid epidemic and what Regence is doing to support the appropriate use of opioids while working hard to prevent abuse. Regence health plans have already exceeded their goal of reducing opioid prescriptions by 25 percent by 2020 across our four-state region of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Utah. (“U.S. opioid abuse crisis needs collaborative solutions,” Jan. 22).

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