Lawtrades Podcast

#3 - Oscar Health GC Hank Greenberg on COVID Resources, Telemedicine, and Remote Workforces

Episode Summary

Hank Greenberg works as General Counsel at Oscar Health. We cover Oscar’s response to COVID-19, how telemedicine will move forward and managing remote legal teams.

Episode Notes

Key Takeaways

• This crisis has put the gas pedal on providers allowing telemedicine.
• Oscar has a personalized risk assessment survey. You can access this survey even if you are not a member. If you are a candidate for testing, it will refer you to a testing site.
• The danger of a fully remote workforce is not communicating enough. Communicate more than ever when working remotely.If you think it can be useful to someone, then communicate it out.
• In the long run, COVID-19 will drastically change the healthcare system. 
• Our society is all in this together. 

Resources Mentioned

• Hank’s LinkedIn
• Oscar
• Oscar’s COVID-19 Resources

Hank Greenberg works as General Counsel at Oscar Health. 

• Over the past five years, Oscar has built a health insurance company that people actually want to talk to – one that engages members and guides them to the right care. Today, Oscar drives the highest levels of engagement in health care, helping over 250,000 individuals and businesses – from startups in Brooklyn, New York to bookkeepers in Bouldin Creek, Austin – take charge of their health.

Working at Oscar during COVID-19

• Oscar feels very lucky to have the opportunity to be helpful for their members. 
• Oscar has the most engaged members in the industry, with the highest mobile engagement of any insurer. 43% of our members’ first visits to the doctor are routed through their technology and customer service teams.
• Oscar is partnered with more than half of the top 20 health systems in the U.S.

Responding to COVID-19

• The company is lucky to already have resources set up. They accommodate work from home in a big way. Oscar has been able to maintain the continuity of their work.
• Oscar has been setting up goals and touchpoints for their team.

Resources from Oscar

• Oscar has a personalized risk assessment survey. You can access this survey even if you are not a member. If you are a candidate for testing, it will refer you to a testing site. This survey is constantly being updated.
• For members, you can call the care team to find the right provider for you.
• If you have symptoms, you can call the care team to find the right place to go. 

How Telemedicine will move forward

• COVID-19 accelerated telemedicine.
• More and more services are moving online.
• The availability for telemedicine is moving forward state by state. 
• This crisis has put the gas pedal on providers allowing telemedicine.
• Everything that can be done remotely is being done remotely now. 
• The state of preparedness for something like this will become a talking point for policy change from now on. 
• Hopefully, there will be more attention to PPE for healthcare workers.
• This will affect the way that people get healthcare. 

GCs working remotely 

• It has been difficult to move remotely. There are certain types of work that are more capable of working remotely. However, legal teams can work remotely fairly seamlessly. 
• Communicate more than ever when working remotely. It can be hard to appreciate what you are hearing or what you aren’t hearing. 
• Don’t hesitate to click send on an email or pick up the phone. If you think it can be useful to someone, then communicate it out. 
• The danger of a fully remote workforce is not communicating enough. 

How the world will look moving forward

• We have to continue the things that we are doing with social distancing. 
• The world needs to make sure that everyone is doing their part. 
• All of short term tradeoff's will be worth it if we can reduce the amount of loss of life. 
• Hopefully, in a few months, we will all be back in our offices.