Apr 12, 2023

Vistria Group-Backed Care Management Company Sets Out To Be ‘Anti-Convener’ The Phoenix-based Professional Health Care Network (PHCN), a home health care management services company, is rebranding. PHCN will now be called “tango.” The rebranding has been in the works for a year, ever since the Chicago-based private equity firm Vistria Group acquired a majority stake in the company. “We are emphasizing our role in enabling our partners to provide high quality, cost-effective care for patients through innovative, value-based models,” tango CEO Brian Lobley told Home Health Care News. “We know that the home setting is the preferred care setting where seniors want to be. We thought a rebrand gave us an opportunity to really light the match on what we’re doing that coincides with the growth we’re having with some existing customers and with some new customers.” Advertisement tango partners with both health plans and providers to provide management solutions and care coordination. Before joining tango, Lobley was the chief development officer at Independence Blue Cross and was looking for an opportunity to run a business. With his experience in running an insurer’s Medicare business, he understood current senior needs and saw the growth opportunities in home-based care. “When I talked to the Vistria Group, I got really excited, because this industry is a bit of a sleeping giant,” Lobley said. “They were already doing really well in the Southwest and had started to move into Colorado, already serving a million members. So we’re excited to expand to the rest of the country.” Advertisement The rebranding will allow the company to go deeper into risk, Lobley said. The company will take risk on readmissions, ED utilization and elsewhere. “Typically home health episodes last around 60 days, we’re extending that risk profile an additional 30 days,” Lobley said. “We’re really caring for the patient throughout the beginning of their own health journey. We’re keeping them out of the hospital and keeping them out of an inpatient setting. We’re deploying products and services that will allow us to amplify a payer’s efforts around social determinants of health and health equity.” The rebrand is also a clear message that tango is the “anti-convener,” the company said. Payers will still be tango’s primary customer, but providers can also embrace the company’s services for efficiencies in the work they do. “From a provider standpoint, sometimes the next best action for a skilled home health nurse is actually getting to the next house,” Lobley said. “We’re saying, ‘No, 10 or 15 more minutes spent in the house, that will be monumental in preventing or keeping that person healthy. We really think we sit in that unique space. We’re not just a utilization management company. We take the referral first and we usher that referral throughout the process for our members.” Share