FAQ
Most frequent questions and answers
SonarMD is a cost-effective early alert system for your IBD patients. We send them a short survey each month and use their responses to generate a numerical value that correlates with symptom intensity, called a Sonar Score. We track their score over time to determine who is at risk of sudden decline. When we see a patient requiring attention, our care coordinators ensure that you get the right information at the right time. This methodology has been proven to reduce ER visits and hospitalizations, and because of this proven cost savings for the care of these patients, we can pass along savings to you, the practice.
We have been operating the SonarMD program for more than four years and have received countless accolades from patients saying it’s easy to use, it makes them feel more connected to their physician, and it helps eliminate the guesswork around whether their symptoms are outliers or part of their normal disease course. Plus, they know it’s been proven to keep people healthier and out of the hospital.
From our years of experience operating this program within practices, we learned where administrative burden can be shifted and how to provide practices with key information at the time they need it. SonarMD takes on the enrollment of patients, surveying patients, and the monitoring of the SonarMD Scores. When a patient looks to be declining, the SonarMD care coordination team will first reach out to the patient and the practice will get all of the information via a SonarMD alert system. Practices will simply need to respond to the patient, just as they would if this patient reached out to the office.
SonarMD will train designated practice resources (e.g., administrators, nurse care managers, interested providers) on how to navigate the SonarMD system and where to find information that is relevant to the care of their patients. In addition, each practice will be assigned a Customer Success Manager who will provide the practice with data (e.g., medical and Rx) and insights that support the common goal of reducing overall cost of care for these patients. As an example, we may examine hospitalization rates compared to a benchmark and/or provide analysis of Specialty Pharmacy Utilization, another known driver of costs for these patients.
SonarMD contracts with payers in the form of shared savings. Practices are not subject to any downside risk and in fact receive a prepayment on their share of the shared savings in the form of a PMPQ fee. This PMPQ per enrolled member per quarter does not have to be paid back, even if shared savings do not exceed what has already been paid.
The site where patients enter their data is password-protected and secure, and insurance providers never sees individual responses, scores or clinical data tracked by SonarMD.
