Innovative collaboration will improve kidney disease care and lower costs for Cigna customers
SAN FRANCISCO (March 24, 2020) — Cricket Health, an innovative kidney care provider, today announced an expanded collaboration with Cigna to provide multidisciplinary care for Cigna’s California-based customers who have late-stage chronic kidney disease (CKD), beginning in May.
“Historically, kidney disease and failure have been disproportionately costly to treat,” said Pete Welch, Northern California market president for Cigna. “Cricket will help Cigna bring affordability, predictability and simplicity to the treatment of kidney disease. By leveraging data to identify at-risk members, we can deploy a care team to deliver the best possible care before the patient’s condition worsens—which can improve the customer’s experience and their health.”
Cricket Health will use its machine learning algorithm to identify Cigna customers living with, or at risk for developing, late-stage CKD, and will deploy a full care management team with the goal of reducing hospitalizations and managing the progression of the disease. For customers whose condition does progress, Cricket Health will help them understand their treatment options—from home or in-center dialysis, to transplants, to conservative care—and empower them to select the best care option for themselves and their families. Cricket’s algorithm relies on claims data only—no electronic health records or clinical test data are needed. This enables Cricket to continuously risk-assess Cigna’s patient population at a low cost. The collaboration aims to keep Cigna’s customers with CKD and end-stage renal disease (ESRD) out of the hospital and increase rates of home therapy adoption.
“Cigna has been an industry leader in adopting data to improve early detection and treatment for other chronic diseases,” said Arvind Rajan, Cricket Health CEO. “Together, we will apply the same evidence-based, multidisciplinary approach to chronic kidney disease and end-stage renal disease, empowering patients to make decisions about their treatment.”
The collaboration aligns with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Advancing American Kidney Health initiative, which aims to improve care and lower costs by decreasing the number of Americans developing ESRD and increasing home dialysis.
Cigna Ventures, the company’s corporate venture fund, invested in Cricket’s $24 million Series A funding round in 2018.
