What They’re Watching: Tim Lieb

Tim Lieb is the President of Regence BlueShield in Washington, where he is charged with directing Regence’s overall performance, including government affairs, sales, provider contracting, and community relations. Lieb also serves on the board of the Washington Health Alliance. He joins us in this edition of “What They’re Watching” to discuss a holistic view of health care.

“One of the key things that we’re looking at is just, how are we going to make health care better, simpler, and more affordable? So, I know that’s kind of three things all combined, but we have to look at everything more holistically. So, how are we looking at value-based care? How are we integrating, thinking about how we pay, how we operate, how we share data, and how we effectively manage care for the membership.

One of the key areas and one of the things that’s very exciting is interoperability. So, as Medicare put in the requirements surrounding interoperability, we were one of the entities providing the rules and helping to develop those rules. And we have multiple pilots right now with how we’re going to do the data sharing and then what’s going to be the advantages for members. So, that’s one of the key things.

The other item is patient advocacy and support. How are we looking to help members — help them navigate, help them understand health care. We all know health care is complex. It feels pretty easy but then as soon as you have that big event it’s very complex. And so, for us it’s using digital and utilizing artificial intelligence to really help present information and support members better to help them really navigate and get to the best care. For me, those are the two, I look at it as big areas, that we’re just most excited about and that’s a really big focus at Regence.”