A message from Andrew Parker, Founder and CEO, Papa
Health plans have spent decades building infrastructure to predict member needs with precision. Risk scores and outreach campaigns tell plans who to call and when. Telehealth platforms and remote monitoring tools have opened up access and driven insights. Plans have invested in and developed benefits that, in theory, should keep members engaged and healthy.
And yet, for many Medicare Advantage and SNP populations, the gap between what plans offer and what members actually use remains stubbornly unchanged. It’s this last mile, between capability and outcomes where plans struggle, especially for complex and socially isolated members. That’s because they haven’t had a channel to engage these members in a targeted, meaningful way.
Until now.
Papa, alongside our plan partners, has been exploring what can happen when members have a trusted companion in the home who can build human connection while helping plans support managed care initiatives. Together, we’ve been exploring what’s possible when companion care services are integrated with targeted quality and engagement programs.
And today, we’re bringing those capabilities to you.
Introducing: Papa Plus
I’m thrilled to announce Papa Plus, our next evolution in supporting health plans through structured, in-home engagement pathways. Papa Plus is built on the human connection we’ve fostered over the past decade through millions of in-person visits. And it layers on structured, outcomes-oriented pathways that help plans reliably reach members, meet quality objectives, and drive ROI.
Papa Plus is a natural extension of our core offering, and as many of our plan partners can attest, it’s the result of years of intentional development shaped by what they have consistently asked for: more structured, measurable ways to connect in-home support with quality, engagement, and care management goals.
What do those tasks look like? This is what really excites me about Papa Plus: we’ve designed configurable quality pathways informed directly by plan priorities, brought together into a continuous model of support. Today, partners are relying on Papa Pals to provide in-home support after a hospital discharge, help members learn how to use portals and other digital tools, help schedule and accompany members to annual wellness visits, and ensure they have their prescriptions. Members experience meaningful companionship, while specific pathways are activated based on emerging needs or key moments, such as recent hospitalization, an upcoming annual, or gaps in preventive care.
For one national partner, Papa drove enough HRA completions among previously unreachable members to help the plan make the next Star Rating cut point. For another, nearly 60% of members who struggle to adhere to medications were successfully scheduled for an Rx delivery. These tasks are emblematic of that “last-mile” challenge, and they’re completed on top of the core outcomes provided by our foundational companion care offering:
- 34% reduction in emergency department high utilizers
- 14% reduction in hospital readmissions
- 19% reduction in total cost of care for high-needs members
Papa Plus is designed to address the real-world barriers plans grapple with every day: lack of social support and isolation, transportation barriers, low digital literacy, caregiving constraints, and more. These are the gaps that continually drive poor outcomes. They affect HRA completion, medication adherence, timely access to care, screenings completed, and readmissions.
Imagine the possibilities — or, the “Papabilities” — with a Papa Pal present in your members’ homes. For so long, that presence has been viewed primarily as a member support benefit – valuable for quality of life improvements, but not always integrated into plan operations. But with Papa Plus, that same trusted presence becomes part of a broader model that supports plan-defined goals, enabling in-home medication reminders, home safety observations, appointment support, and other pathways.
Those interactions scale into measurable improvements in engagement and quality. That’s the Papa Promise. If a program is designed to increase preventive screening rates or improve medication adherence, we structure incentives to guarantee ROI.
The Papa Promise: How we ensure ROI
Alignment around ROI matters now more than ever. It’s with this in mind that Papa Plus brings greater structure and measurability into in-home programs. For plan leaders, this means two things:
- Visibility where it matters most. Vague claims and referral counts won’t cut it. We’re providing first-party, visit-level data that shows whether a task was completed, what the member said, and where additional escalations might be required. This is the level of transparency care managers need to ensure high-quality outcomes.
- Guaranteed ROI. We believe in the outcomes we deliver. So we’re standing behind them with a portion of fees tied to agreed-upon outcomes. This alignment forces clarity on metrics, but more importantly, it builds mutual accountability and trust with our partners.
Imagine the Papabilites with us
We’re beyond proud of this next phase of growth for Papa. For me, personally, it represents a vision I’ve been building toward since day one: bringing trusted human support into the home in ways that meaningfully align with how health plans engage, manage, and support their members. It’s a practical option for plans that want to convert investments in engagement and in-home support into consistent, measurable results.
The home is where health happens. Now, it’s time we treat it like a platform for proven outcomes. Let’s talk about Papabilities.
