Oscar is on a mission to simplify health care. Oscar Health Insurance is a technology-driven health insurance company founded in 2012 and focuses on the ACA exchanges and Medicare Advantage markets. Headquartered in NYC, the company boasts a new virtual primary care offering and a transparent claims pricing system to make it easier for patients to navigate their health. Pulse writer Jeremy Rubel sat down with COO Meghan Verena Joyce to talk more about Oscar and her experiences.

The Pulse: Can you provide us an overview of your background and how you came to join Oscar Health?

Meghan Verena Joyce: After business school, I looked for a general management role in a mission driven organization. Uber was just getting off the ground at that point. I jumped on board as the GM of Uber Boston the April before my graduation. I went to class in the morning and then headed downtown to the office in the afternoon. I took the day off for graduation and the rest is history.
I felt like I found my calling as the general manager at a mission driven organization. When I looked for my next step, that was my benchmark. I never thought I would land in health care because I thought you had to be deeply experienced to be successful – that it was not a space that was open to innovative and disruptive thinking. But when I got to know the Oscar team, I was delighted to find that they thought differently and welcomed my background in consumer tech and high growth organizations. I have been now been COO of Oscar for 13 months.

The Pulse: How has your general management experience at Uber translated into leading a health insurance company? What carries over and what has surprised you?

MVJ: It has been rewarding to see that so much of what I learned in my past life carries over to Oscar. High growth organizations share a lot of common challenges: scaling operations with technology, creating a consumer-centric product, and executing with speed. Both Uber and Oscar are building consumer-centric products in highly regulated environments with powerful incumbents. I have been surprised and delighted at how consistent the opportunities and challenges are.
At the same time, health care has its own nuances. I respect and understand why many say you need experience in health care to be successful. To get smart quickly, I partnered with clinicians and health insurance experts. Health care also has higher stakes because you are dealing with health and wellbeing. It is a responsibility and a challenge we do not take lightly.

The Pulse: Oscar was founded on the mission to help make health insurance easier to navigate for consumers and focuses on the direct-to-consumer individual market. Who do you imagine your target customer to be?

MVJ: Our target customer has evolved meaningfully over Oscar’s 8 years. In its early days, Oscar was often thought of as a New York based insurance company that targeted New Yorkers – young professionals who buy their insurance on the exchanges. Over the last several years, we have diversified our mix of markets, customers, and product lines. Now our customers range from a 26-year-old professional coming off their parents’ insurance, to parents who need a plan for their family, to a senior who is looking for a Medicare Advantage plan, and everything in between. This diversity has made us a better insurance company and even more member-focused because we need to serve a very wide range of customer needs.

The Pulse: In Oscar’s experience, what programs are most successful at keeping members healthy and reducing the total cost of care?

MVJ: Oscar is working to bend the cost curve through deep trust and engagement with members. With our investments in technology and our regular member touch points, we have earned members’ trust and the right and ability to shift their behavior in the direction of more affordable alternatives. For example, our care routing technology can help a member find a high quality, lower cost clinician. Or we can offer a member who otherwise might have gone to an emergency room a virtual primary care appointment that can meet their needs just as well. There is enormous opportunity in forming deep trust with our members so that we can avoid higher cost care that is also a terrible member experience. Members are thrilled when we can avoid high cost care and improve their health care experience at the same time.

The Pulse: Oscar has been ahead of other insurers in offering telehealth and digitally enabled care coordination. In what ways was Oscar well-prepared for recent accelerated adoption of these technologies we have seen during the COVID-19 pandemic?

MVJ: We were as disturbed and saddened as anyone when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. But we realized we had a number assets that we could use to deploy in the time frame that the pandemic required in ways that would benefit our members. We have invested in a full stack and member-centric approach to virtual care for years. When COVID hit, we immediately ramped up capacity on our virtual channels and made free virtual appointments even more accessible than ever before. We very quickly spun up a clinically informed online survey that you could take to assess your risk of COVID. We introduced a COVID test site finder that we opened to not only our members but also the broader community so that anyone could find a COVID test. If you remember, in the early days, that was quite difficult. Since then, we have accelerated the work that we would have done anyway now that COVID is asking more of us and our members. It has been an honor to serve in a time of great need.

The Pulse: What lessons has Oscar learned about virtual care that you plan to apply in the year ahead?

MVJ: There is a business theory called “crossing the chasm.” You are always going to have early adopters who like to try new technology and different models. The idea of crossing the chasm is that making the leap from early adopters to mass market is a different undertaking. There are a lot of people who do not consider themselves early adopters. You need to convince them your product is better if you want to scale. COVID accelerated the “crossing the chasm” in telehealth because more people who would never have considered using the phone to access their physician have now done so. That means our investments in virtual care are now more relevant than ever. Over the last couple of months, we launched a pilot in longitudinal virtual primary care that goes beyond transactional virtual urgent care. It has been fascinating to see how many people see this as an attractive option.

The Pulse: In 2021, Oscar plans to expand to a total of 18 states, up from 15. As COO what work do you have to do to make sure market entry goes smoothly?

MVJ: With every market that we enter, there are new challenges and opportunities. We have to integrate with new hospital systems, network partners, and state exchanges and meet new compliance requirements. The most exciting part is getting to know the individual members and their needs. Different markets have different profiles. Take for example the complexities of hurricanes in Florida or forest fires in California. A deep understanding is critical so that we can offer members the support they deserve. The mission of our concierge team is to be the arm around a member’s shoulder for whatever they need, in the most scary and difficult moments of their lives.

The Pulse: In 2019, Oscar announced its entry into the Medicare Advantage (MA) market. What was the company’s strategic rationale? What has Oscar learned about how to be successful in MA compared to the individual market?

MVJ: Medicare Advantage, like the individual market, is a kind of insurance purchased by individuals. We saw an opportunity to bring our technology and deep service approach to create a differentiated member experience. And the bet is panning out. Digital engagement is nearly as high in MA as high in the individual product. The capabilities we built for the individual market are translating to MA. It has been a neat opportunity to not only partner with our network partners to broaden the members they serve but also to give our communities more options. There are many Oscar members who age out of the individual markets. Now we can give them a MA plan in certain markets to serve them into their later years.

The Pulse: At Uber, your leadership roles grew from managing a team of 5 to more than 700. What advice do you have about how to build a successful team?

MVJ: In a high growth organization, the key is scaling the team as fast as the business is scaling – and ideally even faster, so that the team can stay a step ahead of the business and see around corners for upcoming opportunities and risks. This requires the size of the team to meet the needs of the business as it grows, but also the leadership capabilities and bandwidth to stay a step ahead of the game as well. In order to do that, I fill my bench with people who are better and smarter than I am; hold them accountable to building their own bench; focus on tackling the things that we are uniquely capable of tackling; and push everything else down into the team. This gives more junior members of the team great opportunities to step up and lead – and their managers the opportunity to poke their heads up and focus on the next biggest challenge coming around the bend. The exciting part about this approach is that people at every level in the organization get enormous opportunity for growth and contribution – all while scaling and growing the business.

Interviewed by Jeremy Rubel, November 2020.