Sep 25, 2023
Cassie Choi, Co-Founder of Pair Team, partners with members in the community, such as nonprofits, homeless shelters, food pantries, and primary care providers, to provide healthcare and related services to underserved communities. Drawing on available resources, Pair Team is using digital technology to connect funding sources to these stakeholders so that they can provide the help that is needed by underrepresented and often overlooked patients.
Cassie explains, "I think the issue when you look at Medicaid recipients and underserved communities is that they don't have anything at all. A lot of startups and companies aim for big high-achieving impact. That will happen, but we look at it as we have to earn the right to get there by improving the ecosystem little by little. What we do is provide this care coordination and care delivery to augment the existing systems. I think a differentiator for us, too, is that there are entities in the community that are trying to do this work, but they're really not empowered or enabled to do this."
"I think when you look at the Medicaid population or low-income populations, there are a lot of assumptions that these folks are not engaged in care, which on some level is true. It's about figuring out how to engage them, reach them and meet them where they're at, and then bring them into the care delivery system."
"For Pair Team, we've intentionally made our care accessible through text messages and phone calls. So, we don't create an app or a provider portal to log into. I even have a hard time with those. There are no telemed visits to figure out how to set up on your phone. Most people have phones. It's just they can text and make basic phone calls. And our team is trained to ask them, when do your minutes renew? How many minutes do you have? So that way you can meet them, meet their needs."
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