Mandhir’s Vision: A World Where No One Sells Land for Healthcare

Mandhir has long been well-acquainted with the burden of seeking out adequate and affordable healthcare. As he well knows, billions of people across the world struggle to access and pay for critical medical care.

But thankfully, many of the problems that serve as a roadblock to accessible healthcare — including burdened administrations, uncoordinated medical record-keeping, and an overall lack of transparency — can be sorted out through technological interventions.

These initiatives are precisely what Mandhir works to accomplish. As an expert in data-driven technology, he’s worked on projects to enhance the patient experience and bring about more clarity in the complex world of health insurance. By working on initiatives to assess an individual’s whole health and create holistic profiles that simplify and enhance the doctor-patient experience, he’s made it easier for providers to give more targeted interventions. He’s also designed solutions that improve case management and operational efficiency.

Learn more about Mandhir’s struggle with the healthcare system and how he’s bringing about his ultimate goal: making healthcare attainable and affordable for everyone.

The High Cost of Health

In India, receiving adequate healthcare is often “a struggle against the system,” as those in need of treatment are often subject to predatory financial practices. Even though 72% of India’s population lives in rural areas, 75% of healthcare infrastructure is found in cities. So, to access good medical facilities, many families are forced to surrender their life savings and sometimes even sell their land. As a child, Mandhir found this out for himself, having to watch his father be hospitalized halfway across the country and witness his mother struggle to afford it.

Upon moving to the US, Mandhir was impressed by advanced, high-tech healthcare, but he was also shocked by the high price of even routine visits. In the United States, over 1 in 4 individuals put off healthcare because of the cost, with many people rationing their medication and avoiding critical mental health treatment for fear of bankruptcy. Even those with insurance aren’t immune to the threat of high-cost healthcare — the vast majority of Americans have health insurance, but about half of all adults worry they won’t be able to manage bills if they become sick.

Prioritization and resource utilization is also an issue. Patients underutilize routine doctor’s visits due to health concerns, but upon developing serious conditions as a result, they end up overutilizing more expensive services. These services aren’t actually necessary in most cases, and they would not be recommended if providers were to consider a patient’s whole health background. And when these services are provided to those who don’t need them, it bogs down the system and makes it harder for people who do need these services to access them.

So even after relocating to a country where healthcare was much more accessible, Mandhir knew better than ever that the system wasn’t perfect. He dreamed of making healthcare “a fundamental right that’s accessible to everyone,” and he became further emboldened to put in the work to realize this vision.

Data, Technology, and Curing the Current Order

Mandhir has forged a career at the intersection of technology and healthcare, developing solutions to address problems of transparency, quality-of-care coordination, data acquisition and utilization, and even prescriptive health treatments.

For example, consider Medicare, the largest healthcare program in the United States. This program often struggles with issues of user engagement, regulatory compliance, and resource utilization. To this end, Mandhir developed the Health Operating System (Health OS), an advanced digital platform dedicated to breaking down healthcare data silos, redistributing critical health data to those who need it most (payers and healthcare providers), and ensuring utmost privacy and security.

By giving healthcare professionals easy access to this unified data, Health OS allows for informed, personalized care recommendations. It also paves the way for better proactive care — thanks to its ability to amalgamate data from various providers, profiles, and intake forms, it can better identify preventive measures that could help patients avoid costly interventions in the future. Unnecessary procedures and tests can be avoided, and individuals receive the medical treatment they really need.

For insurance provider Elevance Health, Mandhir developed the Whole Health Index. This tool ingests vast amounts of data and considers various behavioral, social, and pharmaceutical factors in order to build a holistic patient profile. Similar to Health OS, this information can then be used to provide targeted interventions and proactive health management programs.

While working for the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, DC, Mandhir contributed to the DC Access System. This program streamlined the delivery of benefits, which saved millions for the government.

Envisioning a Better Way

Mandhir has devoted his professional life to making sure that people can afford accessible healthcare. By improving the technology around healthcare systems and delivery, he’s helped countless providers save a lot of money, empowering them to pass the savings on to patients.

There’s still a lot of work to be done on the legislative side to prevent price gouging and ensure that people get the help they need at reasonable costs, but Mandhir’s work has gone a long way toward making his dream a reality: making healthcare economically accessible to all. Not a luxury, but a fundamental right.

Allison Schingel, Special to California Business Journal