Accounts from Ember Health's Intake Coordinator
Ember Health Executive Office Administrator Mia Dixler sat down with her team’s Intake Coordinator Grace Bentley to learn about Grace’s role and what she enjoys most about her work at Ember.
Grace Bentley
Hi Grace! Thank you so much for sitting down with me today. I really love being on the Central Office team with you, but our day-to-day responsibilities don’t overlap much. I'm excited to get to know a bit more about your background and your role as Intake Coordinator.
To start out, can you share your professional background and what led you to Ember?
Thanks for having me! I studied biology in school and worked in sales and business development at two different healthcare technology companies before joining Ember. In my prior position, I helped market and sell a mental health and chronic health condition benefits tool to other companies.
I always wanted to have a more patient-facing role, although not as a clinician, and I found Ember by searching for Office Assistant roles in New York City. I wanted to have more of a direct impact with patients, and am very interested in the mental health space. I'm also studying for my Masters in Healthcare Administration, which is very relevant to what I’m doing now at Ember.
It sounds like your interests align really well with your current role. Can you share a bit about what your position as Intake Coordinator entails?
I essentially serve as the first point of contact for new patients at Ember. Day-to-day, I field calls and emails from inquiring patients. I help them with administrative questions and outline what to expect if they were to begin treatment with Ember. The first part of the process for any new patient is to schedule an intake call with one of our physicians, which I help to facilitate. From there, I help to schedule their initial appointments, and provide guidance around paperwork like medical forms.
More recently, I’ve also been optimizing our intake operations to make the process more efficient for us internally, and simple and seamless for patients. We want it to be easy to get started, given that our patients might be going through a hard time or experiencing a depressive episode when they’re first reaching out to us.
How is Ember unique compared to your past roles in healthcare?
It’s definitely very different from what I've done in the past, in the best way possible. First, it's an actual healthcare service. In my previous role, I was working with technology and enabling providers to have a more efficient practice, but not working directly with patients.
Ember is also a really evidence-based organization. We spend a great deal of time engaging with data and clinical trials to find the best way to serve our patients with the highest success rate. We’re also very patient-centered, meaning we put patients and their needs first, in a much greater way than I’ve seen elsewhere in the healthcare industry.
You’re often the first point of contact when patients reach out to Ember. How do patients learn about Ember Health?
Patients mainly learn about Ember through their mental health providers - like if they have a therapist, psychiatrist, or primary care team. Ember has a very strong presence in the mental health space in New York City, so patients learn about us mostly through referrals or through word-of-mouth from other Ember patients. New patients occasionally find out about us through online forums and web search.
What are some of the most common questions that prospective patients ask you?
They mainly ask about logistics. That includes everything from how to get started, to how many visits there are, to how long the treatment might take.
A big question that patients have is around cost. Unfortunately right now, IV ketamine treatment for depression is not covered in-network by any major insurers, so patients pay out-of-pocket. With that said, our patients with out-of-network benefits as a part of their healthcare plans receive an average of 70% reimbursement, and we provide guidelines about how to make the most of these benefits. We also offer a sliding scale program that has provided access to people who otherwise couldn’t afford care.
When cost comes up in conversation, I also get to talk about how Ember Health has a really good value of care. It's much more than just the ketamine that's provided - it's the whole experience. There’s a lot of care coordination between our providers and theirs. We continually monitor patients in their infusions. Ember tries to keep costs down as much as we can to ensure access to those who need it.
When you're speaking with patients, what do they say is most important for them to feel confident moving forward with care at Ember?
Most often, patients want to know that they're going to be taken care of. That sounds like a basic need, but these patients are often in a bad place when they’re reaching out to us. They want to make sure that they'll be with a very caring team that is compassionate and empathizes with them. I'm always talking about how great our clinical staff are. I tell potential patients that they'll feel at home and they'll be very safe and cared for here.
Are there any common misconceptions around IV ketamine treatment that you encounter in your role? And, when they come up, how do you address those misconceptions?
Patients will sometimes ask why we do four infusions versus six infusions during their foundation series, because some other IV ketamine providers in New York City start with six infusions.
When this comes up, I talk about our evidence-based practice model and how data shows that, when treating patients specifically for depression, four infusions is just as successful as six, and puts less financial and logistical burden on the patient. Ember focuses entirely on depression, so that's the data that we follow.
You're currently pursuing your Master's in Health Administration at Columbia University. Do you find that your work at Ember has any influence when it comes to your Master's classwork?
Definitely. Last semester, I actually wrote a paper - not about Ember specifically - but about increasing IV ketamine’s accessibility for patients with depression.
In my program, we talk a lot about public health issues, and mental health is one of the biggest topics within that space right now for the U.S. We’ve discussed psychedelic treatments and other progressive treatments, and the shifting policy landscape around them.
I have a lot of courses that are based in the finances and accounting of healthcare, that discuss FDA-approval processes and insurance coverage. It's interesting to see the differences between private practice versus not-for-profit hospital finances and operations. I think I'm the only one in my cohort who doesn't work for a hospital. Most of my classmates work for really big organizations - so I bring a unique perspective to my classes.
What is your favorite thing about your role as Intake Coordinator?
My favorite thing is being able to interact and actually positively impact patients directly. In my previous roles, I was so far removed from patient success and patient experience. Right now, I’m right there in it, so I really love that.
For patients, any time you're exploring a new option for medical treatment, it can be intense and complex. I find joy in trying to make that process as easy as possible for them. I hope they feel like I helped them navigate that well, either as they begin treatment or just explore their options.
We definitely see your efforts on that end, and how well you do your role in general. Members of our team have given you shoutouts when a patient shares that they had an exceptional experience with you.
You're a really important part of the Ember Health Central team. What do you enjoy most about working with this group?
I just really love working with all the people on our team. Everyone has their own main responsibilities, but we’re still very dynamic and fluid. I’m always able to chat with team members about something that I'm thinking about or how to answer a question from a patient.
I like that we have administrative team members but then we also have Nico, our co-founder, who's a trained physician. It's nice that I can turn to those different perspectives for my own workflow.
Everyone is also very passionate about the work that we do, which is inspiring. I’m really glad to be a part of the team.
What inspires you most about your work with Ember?
Given how many people are affected by mental health and depression across our country, and across the globe, it's really cool to see Ember utilizing such a progressive treatment to successfully treat a mental health crisis.
I’m also inspired by the potential to have CMS cover IV ketamine for depression, which would be a watershed moment for in-network insurance coverage of this treatment. I know Nico, one of our founders, often talks about how he’s working to make this a reality. That's a big “if” and “when”, but Medicaid/Medicare coverage would improve access and availability to patients both with and without insurance. It's cool to see that Ember could be a part of making that happen.
Is there anything that I didn't ask you about that you think our broader community - whether they're patients or providers - would find interesting about the intake process and your own team?
In general, Ember takes such good care of our patients. I really feel our whole team is like a family - we take people in, and we take care of them. From that first phone call that you make to Ember, I’ll remember your name, I'll remember what you told me on the phone; it all goes into coordinating your care, beyond just talking with me. Even that first conversation is important to the team, and signals how we're going to treat you as a patient.
Thank you so much, Grace, for taking the time to sit down with me. We really love having you on the team and appreciate all the work that you do as Intake Coordinator. You play an invaluable role in the process.