Why Advanced Care Planning Matters For Everyone with Tatiana Fofanova, CEO of Koda Health

[00:00:01] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit outcomesrocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945.

[00:00:29] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Outcomes Rocket Founder Stories. Today, I have the pleasure of having Tatiana Fofanova with us. She is the co-founder and CEO at Koda Health, and she's a long-term advocate for patients facing severe illness. Super interesting background, and I'm excited to have her here. So, Tatiana, welcome. Thank you. It's so great to be here, Saul.

[00:00:58] Yeah. And look, to kick things off, anything in your background that maybe you want to share that I left out? Yeah, absolutely. So, I have a PhD in molecular medicine from Baylor College of Medicine. Did a lot of work at Texas Children's Hospital. Worked with a lot of seriously ill populations, both adult and pediatric, over my time in clinical medicine or clinical science.

[00:01:23] And on weekends, because I don't think that was stressful enough, I also did a lot of refugee work. So, I myself come from a family of Silees. It's always been near and dear to my heart. And so, I've really taken it upon myself to champion those in my community facing similar issues. Yeah, a lot of that is what I do and what I carry into my work at Koda Health.

[00:01:44] We started it a few years back, and there we're also working with seriously ill individuals that are having trouble advocating for their own goals, preferences, quality of life, and treatments. Well, I love it, Tatiana. Thanks for sharing your story. And it's clear, your passion for working with these folks. If you had to summarize it for our listeners, what is the core of your business? What do you guys do? How is it different? And why does it matter?

[00:02:13] Yeah, so Koda Health is a patient decision support company and platform. We help our clients, which tend to be healthcare providers and healthcare insurance companies. We help their patients understand their conditions, make informed decisions about their healthcare that they can chronicle in actionable plans. Things like medical power of attorney documents, advanced directives, resuscitate orders, kidney action plans.

[00:02:41] Things that can tremendously impact the course of their care and their treatment. And we make sure that all of their downstream care aligns with how they want to live their lives, how their quality of life looks to them. So when it comes to the patient populations we work with, the vast majority of people have nothing in place. They've never talked to their loved ones about this. They certainly have not talked to a lawyer about this or a physician.

[00:03:07] And another chunk might have done so with a lawyer, but that legal document, that advanced directive, what have you, is 15 years out of date and laying in a safe somewhere. So it's not actually instructional to the patient's care. It provides no guidance for a family. It just, and we've seen firsthand how that can impact a patient's life and their trajectory. Very often they get care that doesn't align with their goals, their values, their quality of life preferences. Sometimes even goes against their religious beliefs.

[00:03:38] And that's pretty devastating for families and for patients. And a lot of the barriers to that care are financial barriers, health literacy barriers, all of these things. By making our platform and our services available to patients for free, because it turns out that the doctors that are providing that care will pay to have an instruction manual for what to do with that patient and what that patient wants.

[00:04:03] We can break down a lot of those barriers and achieve equitable access to these types of health care options to patients across race, gender and socioeconomic status. That's fantastic, Tatiana. It's a huge need. And so many people don't have those things in order or they're super old and sitting in a safe. Like so well said and like truthfully said. You said you serve health systems and payers.

[00:04:32] Talk to us a little bit about that more. Yeah. So if you, when we work with payers, we operate as a member benefit effectively. So anyone associated with that insurance plan is able to have this as part of their benefits package. And what's interesting is I think there's a pretty impressive appetite for patients and members to engage in this.

[00:04:58] I think there's this mentality or this, I guess, public perception that nobody wants to talk about serious illness. And this is something you only do when you become seriously ill or when you approach end of life. And it couldn't be further from the truth. A lot of patients want to prepare ahead of time. It's a terrible idea to pack your parachute once somebody already jumps out of the plane, right?

[00:05:20] And so there's a pretty big appetite amongst members and patients in every community, across every age group, across every health status to have this in place, right? To be able to adequately communicate to their loved ones and their care teams what kind of care matters most to them. And then for health care providers, it honestly makes the most sense. Those are the bulk of our clients, right? They care a lot about providing the right kind of care.

[00:05:49] And I can't tell you how devastating it is when the provider knows that this is something Mrs. Smith, who's 94 years old and doesn't want, but they're still forced and legally required to provide everything in the kitchen sink, even though they might know that it violates her quality of life goals or her preferences or anything like that. It's something they're required to do.

[00:06:13] So yeah, by rolling it out through those sources and getting those sources to pay for it, we remove a lot of those barriers. I love that. And in health care, it is all about who pays for it. And it's great to hear that sort of everybody involved wins. As a patient, you get what you want. As a provider, you're delivering what's in the best interest of the patient. And as a payer, maybe you don't have to pay for everything you thought you were going to pay. And so I think everybody ends up winning.

[00:06:43] Tatiana, what would you say is one thing that most people don't know about the problem that you solve? Yeah. So in our space, I think actually in health care overall, I think that most people don't know that 70% of all health care costs are attributable to the 10% of the population that is sickest. And the vast majority of that is in the last year of life.

[00:07:08] So if you think about it, and this is, you can find this in Medicare statistics, about 25% of all health care costs occur in the last year of life. And so many of those are avoidable and unwanted because when you address some of these issues of access, right? A patient with an advanced care plan, which is with a service that we provide on file, is about 24% cheaper to manage. And that's a huge outcome for health systems and payers.

[00:07:38] But more importantly, the patients themselves, the families themselves, get the kind of care that they want. They're the ones advocating for their care. And that's whether they want all of it or none of it. We have a certain proportion of our patient population that has historically not received all the care that they've wanted. And by having an advanced care plan, they can advocate for all of the care that they want.

[00:08:02] And it still saves our customers money, frankly, because they're able to move down that continuum of care faster and not have any sort of barriers to that progression. I love that. What an insight there, folks, to learn from Tatiana on this one. It pays to do the right thing. And these types of plans are critical and proof of that. Tatiana, we love to learn from successful people.

[00:08:30] What's your favorite business resource or business hack you'd recommend to our listeners and why? Are my favorite business hack. So this is my favorite sales and marketing hack. And somebody taught this to me a year ago, and I just thought it was the smartest thing in the world. And it's so simple. It's not a resource in the slightest. So when you're at a conference, the energy of a conference is so activating, right? Everyone wants to meet you.

[00:09:00] Everyone wants to start partnerships. It's just there's bubbling with excitement, right? And you make all these connections and you promise to follow up afterwards. But once the conference ends, it's a little like some of the fizz goes out, right? And so somebody taught me this. When you're in that exciting moment, just immediately get a meeting on the calendar. I like that. Write that in there. Pull up your calendar. We'll pull up my calendar.

[00:09:28] Meet with this amazing founder to talk about their amazing solution. And you just send it right exactly like that. And it's amazing. The follow through on those meetings and the excitement that they show up with on that meeting, because they themselves set the appointment that said, talk with this amazing founder. It's a superpower. You should do it. I love it. Hey, that's a hack. I love that. That's a great resource.

[00:09:57] And I'm a huge fan. I love that. And I'm a huge fan of actually like at conferences when you meet people to take a selfie as well. And then text it to them, because that also brings back that energy from the conference. So I love your idea takes that idea to the next level. Just set up the appointment, folks. What a great hack. Super valuable and really appreciate you sharing it. Have them set up the appointment. Have them set up the appointment even better. Oh, I missed that.

[00:10:27] Oh, okay. No one's going to cancel that. Yeah. That is so good. That is so good. What a great tip, folks. Take that one to your next conference. And I think you'll feel and see the difference. So, Tatiana, what you do is so valuable. I want to make sure that our listeners and viewers know where to find you if they're wanting to engage. What's the best place they could do that? Well, they can go to our website, which is CodaHealthcare.com.

[00:10:56] Coda Health is our patient-facing website. So it's not necessarily accessible unless you're under the plans or the health systems that we work with. But yes, CodaHealthcare.com. You can find me on my LinkedIn. I love connecting with people. Send me a message and we'll be friends. I'm clearly not a shy individual. I have no reservations to making friends immediately and going out for coffee. So yeah, come chat. I love it. Tatiana, thank you so much.

[00:11:24] And folks, in the show notes, you'll find all the ways to get in touch. Coda Healthcare is with a K. But don't worry about spelling it. Just check it out in the show notes. Click on it. Get there. Because serious illness planning doesn't have to be that hard. There's an easy way to get it done through Tatiana and her team. So make sure you check her out. And Tatiana, thanks for spending time with us. This was very valuable. It was a great time for me too, Saul.

[00:12:02] This podcast is produced by Outcomes Rocket, your healthcare exclusive digital marketing agency. Outcomes Rocket exists to help healthcare organizations like yours to maximize their impact and accelerate growth. Visit outcomesrocket.com or text us at 312-224-9945. Outcomes Rocket.