Female Disruptors: Jennifer Meyer of DispatchHealth On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
“The only thing you have to gain in opposing new ideas is that you may be right,” meaning why to be a naysayer, you are only serving to poison a creative process that could turn out a solution for one of the world’s most pressing problems.
As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jennifer Meyer, MBA.
Jennifer is a transformative executive with a long history of driving industry shifts that elevate healthcare and translate into better, more affordable medical attention for the masses. As chief development officer at DispatchHealth, Jennifer supports the organization’s mission to transform the industry by building a comprehensive system of care in the home. In her role, she drives meaningful partnerships with many of our nation’s leading health plans to implement solutions that give members options for convenient, quality healthcare at home.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Thanks for having me. Right out of college, I began consulting work across various industries. Consulting was a good fit — strategy has always drawn me — I am one of those people who thrive on searching for new and better ways of doing things. While I loved the variety, I quickly became hungry to focus my attention somewhere I could make significant, prominent, and impactful changes — the type of change that would better people’s lives. But what would that be? Like many young adults, the realization that healthcare in America is expensive became apparent. In my circle of friends, I began to see the struggles that mounting medical bills produce. And my emerging stress and anxiety over needing to secure and maintain quality health insurance spoke to me — having good health insurance is a significant driver for many Americans. My aha moment soon followed — healthcare offered that “Big Opportunity” to drive strategy in an area where people were struggling and in an industry that touches everyone. Finding innovative ways to deliver high-quality healthcare at lower cost would become my mission, and with that, set the stage for my life’s work.
Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?
I have a dollar figure that will likely shock readers — $4 trillion. That’s how much we spend on healthcare in America, and it’s unsustainable! Roughly $1.3 trillion of that is spent on emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and post-acute stays — think “facility-based” care. However, advancements in technology now make it possible to move a sizable portion of that care, probably more than $433 billion worth, out of traditional brick and mortar settings and into the home, where we can care for qualified patients at a fraction of the cost, and often produce better outcomes.
DispatchHealth, the organization I work with, has built a scalable system of care in the home that did not exist in America before our inception — we’re creating the world’s first distributed healthcare system. Out of necessity, we have worked hard to develop a reimbursement mechanism for the entirety of our services that aligns patient, payer, and provider.
To answer your question specifically, as the chief development officer, I’ve led disruption in the healthcare industry by building high-value partnerships with risk-bearing entities, including large provider groups and health plans, like Aetna, United Healthcare, and more. Without the ability to rely on a health insurance policy for payment, our unique model of care wouldn’t be accessible to the masses; more than 100 million lives across the country today can thankfully take advantage of advanced medical care at home. Most recently, I brought to fruition the country’s first hospital-level care-at-home alternative, backed by a national payer, Humana. And our program remains the only community-based model to offer consumers advanced medical attention at home. By developing this innovative reimbursement structure, a large population of high medical needs patients now have access to hospital-quality care in the comfort and safety of home. It brings me immense joy and personal fulfillment to have touched 500,000 Medicare Advantage lives, giving them access to our novel programs — it feels impactful, with just enough disruption.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Early in my career, I felt the need to spell out every last detail of the things I was involved with, so much so that for a meeting I was coordinating, I told the two CEOs in attendance where to sit — I got some funny looks. But, I’ve learned that you don’t always have to be so prescriptive, that as long as you have the core pieces, a little balance, nuance, and fluidity is OK.
We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?
My first job post-MBA was with the global management consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The firm works across all industries, with corporations, governments, and other organizations. I worked as an associate principal of healthcare services and systems practice — we were responsible for addressing some of the healthcare industry’s most challenging problems. One of my most influential mentors was one of the healthcare growth leaders at McKinsey, who gave me and others the freedom to think big! The other thing this mentor instilled in me was to take a global approach to problem-solving — meaning look outside your field of work to find best practices elsewhere that you may be able to adapt.
And in healthcare, adaptability is key especially over the last couple of years. Fun story to share related to this — at the start of the pandemic, personal protective equipment (PPE) was in short supply. A member of the supply chain team at a partner health system produced an ingenious solution for making disposable isolation gowns, and it was an application used in the publishing industry. He purchased rolls of quality plastic, created a pattern that he cut pieces from, and then used a thermal binding machine to secure everything — thermal binding is the process used to secure pages of a book to adhesive binding strips. DispatchHealth helped in the creative process, and thousands of gowns were made, which offered medical teams the necessary protection at the height of the pandemic!
Regarding problem-solving, fighting the existing reality only leads to frustration. The impact of this influence on me and my career has been significant — supporting the process of running towards big ideas, with the permission to think about and try untested, new strategies, is the only way to make significant, impactful contributions. I appreciate it can feel scary and risky, but permission to take that risk, even if you fail, is essential and something I’m grateful to have instilled in me.
In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?
The simple answer is disruption for disruption-sake only causes chaos. Take the example of Coca-Cola; in the early 80s, the company unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt the soft drink industry with a new, sweeter version of its original recipe. The public freaked out, PepsiCo took out a full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal declaring it had won the cola wars and Coca-Cola retired their failed take on a classic.
Positive disruption occurs when you’re solving a big problem or roadblock. Take my industry, healthcare; the United States spends an unsustainable $4 trillion on medical care. The founders of DispatchHealth saw the opportunity to move advanced levels of healthcare into the home where providers can care for complex patients at a lower cost and, in the process, solve other issues like traditionally low patient satisfaction, provider fatigue, hospital capacity issues, and more. Need is the caveat to positive disruption.
Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.
- “The only thing you have to gain in opposing new ideas is that you may be right,” meaning why to be a naysayer, you are only serving to poison a creative process that could turn out a solution for one of the world’s most pressing problems.
- “There’s little to no benefit sitting in status quo.” My mentors pushed this concept of never being comfortable riding the wave and instead jumping off to look for something bigger or better.
- To get buy-in on complex ideas and big projects, “Always think about how stakeholders are impacted and try to solve their concerns from the start.” And similarly, it is critical to break down complex projects and simplify the value before asking for adoption. “People must get your idea quickly and understand how it will impact them, ahead of buying in — make that process simple.”
We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?
Understanding the realities of social determinants of health is easy. There is no arguing that where one lives, the conditions of their environment, availability of quality food, transportation, and more directly impact their overall health. Where there is a disconnect is that solving these shortcomings benefits healthcare’s entire ecosystem. For example, a patient who requires oxygen, if they live through periods with no electricity, which means no oxygen, repeat visits to the hospital for related illnesses aren’t surprising. But considering this, solving the lack of electricity not only improves the patient’s health, but by reducing hospitalizations, we positively impact the financial bottom line of that patient’s insurance provider. Of course, this is a simplistic example of a complex issue. Still, it gives you a feel for how and why the healthcare industry benefits from getting involved in social determinants of health work.
Where I’m shaking things up next is in this space. By visiting our patients in their environment, DispatchHealth is uniquely qualified to identify these social determinants of health. And what I’m doing is creating pathways to share these details with the appropriate people and organizations to develop solutions. The missing link has traditionally been the ability of the caregiver, someone who isn’t in healthcare, to connect these dots in a meaningful way and we have a first-of-its-kind solution. I’m excited to lead this essential work for DispatchHealth and ultimately patients across the country.
In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?
I wouldn’t say women disruptors face different or more significant challenges than our male counterparts. I would say that some of the qualities it takes to be the voice behind disruption are traditionally more characteristic of men. Leading change takes thick skin and the confidence to bring new, maybe unpopular, ideas to the table. Back to the influence of my mentor — in the workforce, if we foster creative thinking and supportive environments, big things are possible.
Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?
I listen to many things, but the podcast “How I Built This” with Guy Raz is a staple. Guy dives into the stories behind some of the world’s most influential companies and explores the back stories of the innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists behind the movements they built — the segments are always fascinating and feed my need to hear about grandiose ideas and out of the box concepts that worked!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Honestly, I don’t feel like I can answer this one without sounding a bit self-serving. I passionately believe the movement that will bring the most good to the most significant number of people is supporting the revolutionary movement for more, higher acuity healthcare in the home. As I mentioned, Americans spend $4 trillion on our healthcare system today, and $1.3 trillion is on “facility-based” care. We believe at least one-third of those patients could be cared for in their own homes, where it’s easier to identify and address social determinants of health. By doing this, we cut the cost of care significantly while improving outcomes and reducing the need for overall utilization.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” — Richard Buckminster Fuller
How can our readers follow you online?
linkedin.com/in/jenniferannmeyer
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Female Disruptors: Jennifer Meyer of DispatchHealth On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.