Dr. Kathryn Kolonic is a specialist in family medicine whose career has been propelled by the motivation to improve the quality of care for all patients, while ensuring the most appropriate utilization of healthcare services.
Today, she serves as Vice President and Medical Director at AllMed Healthcare Management. In a nutshell, her key responsibility is to source and recruit the best-suited physician specialists to carry out reviews for insurance companies.
Prior to joining AllMed, Kathryn was part of a Medicare Advantage plan, giving her the opportunity to see first-hand how the system works as an insider.
During this interview, Kathryn talks about the ins and outs of working with payers, what is needed for a strong payer relationship to work, and what opportunities lie ahead in 2024.
Rebecca Willumson: Hi there. I'm Rebecca Willumson. I'm the publisher of Fierce Healthcare, and I'm here today with Dr. Kathryn Kolonic, Vice President and Medical Director at AllMed Healthcare Management. Thank you for joining me today.
Dr. Kathryn Kolonic: Thank you for having me.
Rebecca Willumson: So, before we begin, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and your role at AllMed?
Dr. Kathryn Kolonic: I'm a family medicine physician by training, and prior to coming to AllMed, I was a part of a Medicare Advantage plan where I had the opportunity to see how the Medicare Advantage world works. So, I came from clinical practice through Medicare Advantage and then started with AllMed about two and a half years ago. My role is to recruit physician specialists to do reviews for insurance companies, so finding the right independent reviewer to do utilization management for our clients and work with them on anything related to quality to make sure they're getting what they need and really partnering with the medical directors of plans to make sure we're managing the process beginning to end.
Rebecca Willumson: Very good. So tell me, where do you see the greatest opportunity in working with payers?
Dr. Kathryn Kolonic: The opportunity is to find great vendor partners, and I don't just mean vendors, I mean people that are really willing to partner with you to mention operational efficiencies, to provide a national perspective and to make sure you are where you should be.
Rebecca Willumson: And what do you need from a payer partner to really make that relationship work.
Dr. Kathryn Kolonic: It all starts with communication. So from the c-suite all the way down through operations, making sure everyone is comfortable sharing information, it's hard to be a great partner to you if we don't know what your real challenges are, and we really just want to make sure that we're able to communicate to you if something is going on, if something has changed, if you're seeing a new trend coming so that we can staff properly. We really want to be a good partner by communicating well.
Rebecca Willumson: So, looking ahead, what do you see as the opportunities payers have in 2024?
Dr. Kathryn Kolonic: It's partnering with organizations like AllMed to help you manage demand fluctuations and utilization management. Your medical director team may not be able to handle the highest volume, but you also don't need to staff fully all year long. We all have business related fluctuations, and we can provide some backup for your medical directors so that they can focus on the things that really matter to your business, and we can help you with the utilization management steps that may come and go as the years go by.
Rebecca Willumson: Very good. That's a good place to close out. Thank you so much for joining me.