Longevity Health Plan does not consider itself to be a technology company, Brad Riley, vice president of analytics and reporting, said. But that is not stopping it from chasing “tiny wins.”
LHP is expanding its partnership with healthcare AI company Innovaccer after achieving a $1 million cost reduction of inpatient stays, according to a March 26 news release.
LHP offers clinical services and an institutional special needs plan, a type of Medicare Advantage plan for those requiring long-term facility or more intensive at-home care. The company hires their own nurse practitioners to work in care facilities.
Mastering skilled nursing facilities can be a niche, untapped opportunity — but one that is LHP’s “bread and butter,” Mr. Riley said in a recent Becker’s interview.
LHP and Innovacer have been working together since 2023, deploying a cloud-based platform. The plan reduced inpatient costs by nearly 20%, and the $1 million reduction stems from avoiding unnecessary admissions.
“When you do that, not only are you saving dollars, which is important, but you’re improving somebody’s quality of life,” Mr. Riley said.
The organization also improved utilization by nearly 10%.
LHP was also able to hone “calls to action” for its members once it established a strong foundational data layer. After cleaning and joining data — bridging EHR, claims, pharmacy and minimum data set information — Mr. Riley said LHP could “create a holistic member view that drives some more decision making” while using AI. Mr. Riley said these tools can cut down on the administrative tasks for care management and enable LHP’s nurse practitioners to work at the top of their licenses.
Because LHP cares for a very acute older adult population, its membership is ever-changing.
“You can’t call it cost savings all the time, but it is the same process with the same experience being displayed to other members on a repeatable basis,” he said when asked about whether savings could be replicated.
LHP has also launched an AI Center of Excellence. As the National Committee for Quality Assurance is rolling out AI standards in 2027, compliance and maintaining governance around AI strategies will be top priorities for LHP, Mr. Riley said. The team will focus on clinical accuracy, medical cost savings, elevating member experience and administrative efficiency.
According to the news release, the next stage of LHP’s relationship with Innovaccer will include enterprise chatbots and internal assistants, retrieval-augmented generation agents, custom business intelligence and risk models and natural language access to data.
“There are a lot of companies that want to be on the breaking edge of AI,” Mr. Riley said. “Our strategy is not being in that group. Our strategy is being the group behind them that focuses on what’s tried and true [and] is able to make sure we’re doing it in compliant ways.”
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