New York, NY – Laurent Laor MSc MBA, AHFI, is an author, speaker and founder of Viveka Health, a company whose mission is “to drive value in healthcare through automation and intelligence.”
By eliminating fraud, waste, abuse and errors, Viveka’s technologies reduces benefit fund healthcare expenses by up to 20-percent. Their solutions for member eligibility, claims processing and payments go far beyond typical software because of their focus on value creation.
“We define value simply — outcomes divided by costs,” Laor says. “We then pursue solutions that improve outcomes and reduce costs. We make those metrics transparent to our clients”
Over his 25-year career in healthcare technology, Laor has built many exciting solutions for healthcare payers, providers, and patients. LaborPress met with Laor to learn about him and how labor unions and benefit funds can leverage Viveka and other technology to improve fund performance. The result of those conversations will be printed in a forthcoming series.
While attending NYU, Laor worked at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. It was there he found his passion for healthcare.
“I was a part of a team that developed life critical software for intra-aortic balloon pumps, and life changing artificial vision systems for the blind. I love making a difference for people,” Laor says.
His work was recognized by the National Library of Medicine and he was awarded a fellowship to study Biomedical and Clinical Informatics at Johns Hopkins University.
While there, Laor studied how computer systems can support doctors and patients when making medical decisions. He formed a company — Good Network — based on his research. The company found some success but stumbled in the wake of the recession of 2008. Laor then went to Rockefeller University as the Director of Hospital Information Systems. He obtained an MBA at Yale focused on Healthcare Economics and quickly landed a role at the global consulting firm Accenture.
“That experience opened my eyes to [health] insurance carriers and payer operations. They have lots of problems, mostly because the incentives are misaligned,” he says. “As an example, carriers compete on ‘discount to charges,’ a ratio that describes the difference between what the medical provider charges and what the carriers pay. Let’s assume the insurance company negotiates an unheard of 90% discount to charges. Sounds great, right? But what happens is that hospitals charge $50 for aspirin and insurance companies pay $5 for a pill that costs two cents at the drugstore. In fact a recent JAMA article found that nearly one trillion dollars is wasted annually, mostly as a result of misaligned incentives.”
Viveka’s technology specifically targets these misaligned incentives by reducing fraud, waste, abuse and errors.
“Our first client was Teamsters Local 272 in NYC,” Laor says. “We started by solving some of their fraud and error issues and quickly branched into waste and abuse, which are in fact much bigger problems. Our eligibility and mobile app solutions reduce administrative waste by doing things like answering phone calls with Amazon Alexa, replacing postage and handling with document delivery through our mobile and fraud detection tools just like you have with your credit card. Incorrectly processed claims and poor communication are also big contributors to waste. We drive efficiency ensuring claims are paid correctly, communicating with members and providers in real-time in the language of their choice, and incentivizing everybody to do the right thing. That’s how we achieve superior outcomes. By connecting the dots we help Labor save between 10-20% of their overall healthcare expense.”
