Transforming Patient Navigation Through Tech and Tenacity

Rani Khetarpal is the Co-founder and CEO of NavPoint Health, a company dedicated to advancing patient navigation and care coordination through innovative technology solutions. With over 25 years of experience across pharmaceuticals, digital health, and value-based care, she brings a strategic and mission-driven approach to transforming healthcare. Previously, she held leadership roles at companies including GSK, Teva, and CVS, and founded and exited Global Transitional Care, the first Medicare-recognized transitional medicine provider. Rani is also the President of the Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators and Founding Partner of Raviya Health Solutions.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [2:46] Rani Khetarpal shares how a marketing class shifted her career from premed to business
• [6:25] Lessons from selling office supplies and breaking into pharmaceutical sales
• [13:36] Career growth at GSK and the value of leadership development programs
• [20:20] The inspiration and early steps behind founding Global Transitional Care
• [28:25] Challenges, lessons, and the successful acquisition of her first startup
• [37:09] How a chance collaboration sparked the creation of NavPoint Health
• [45:41] Why now is the right time for digital innovation in patient navigation and care coordination

In this episode…

For patients with chronic or complex conditions, the healthcare system can feel like a maze of confusion, missed handoffs, and limited support. Despite breakthroughs in treatment, the human side of care — like coordination, communication, and patient guidance — is often fragmented or under-resourced. How can healthcare leaders bridge the gap between clinical care and patient experience in a scalable, sustainable way?

Rani Khetarpal, a healthcare executive with extensive experience in pharmaceuticals, value-based care, and digital health, shares how early career pivots and entrepreneurial instincts led her to tackle the fragmentation in patient support services. Rani emphasizes the importance of understanding operational inefficiencies from both clinical and administrative perspectives and recommends a hybrid approach that combines technology with human connection. She highlights the evolution of navigation roles, the rise of risk-based models, and the necessity of strong partnerships to scale solutions across diverse healthcare systems.

In this episode of Transaction Healthcare, Zak Eisenberg interviews Rani Khetarpal, CEO of NavPoint Health, about transforming patient navigation through innovation and experience. Rani shares how her corporate background informed her entrepreneurial ventures and how timing is crucial when introducing healthcare solutions. She also discusses the emergence of principal illness navigation codes, the human-AI balance in care coordination, and why second-time founders approach building differently.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Zak Eisenberg on LinkedIn
• Merritt Healthcare Advisors
• Merritt Healthcare Advisors email: contactus@merrittadvisory.com
• Rani Khetarpal on LinkedIn
• NavPoint Health 
• Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators (AONN+) 
• Penn Nursing University of Pennsylvania Transitional Care Model (TCM)
• NIH Seed Small Business Funding

Quotable Moments:

• “If I’m not going to have confidence in myself, who else is going to have confidence in me?”
• “Navigation is the glue in our healthcare continuum that’s not been given focus until recently.”
• “The knowledge that you can’t do this alone; you need people smarter than you to advise and help is key.”
• “I’ve never backfilled a role; I’ve always taken on something that’s never been done before.”
• “You’re always selling something, whether you’re an engineer or executive assistant, you’re convincing someone to say yes.”

Action Steps:

1. Train care coordinators and navigators effectively: Well-equipped teams are essential for delivering measurable outcomes in value-based care models.
2. Align with federal healthcare initiatives: Staying in sync with policy changes, like CMS codes, unlocks reimbursement and growth opportunities.
3. Validate your business model early: Knowing who will pay for your solution helps avoid stalled innovation and unclear paths to scale.
4. Take calculated career risks: Strategic leaps can create momentum when paired with timing, clarity, and the right support systems.
5. Build with both technology and people in mind: Combining scalable tools with human connection enhances the patient experience and improves the impact of healthcare.

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Merritt Healthcare Advisors.

Merritt Healthcare Advisors is an investment bank with a unique focus on healthcare providers and their businesses.

Merritt leverages the healthcare industry expertise of its owner-operators, clinicians, investors, and advisors to develop surgical facilities that perform safe, efficient, and cost-effective procedures.

To learn more, visit https://merritthealthcare.com/.

Episode Transcript

Intro: 00:04  

Hello and welcome to Transaction Healthcare. I’m Zak Eisenberg, Vice President at Merritt Healthcare Advisors. Merritt Healthcare Advisors is an investment bank with a unique focus on healthcare providers and their businesses. Transaction Healthcare is a podcast focused on addressing questions and concerns at the intersection of healthcare transactions and business. I’m Zak Eisenberg, a partner at Merritt Healthcare Advisors and your host for Transaction Healthcare, where we address questions and concerns at the intersection of transactions, healthcare, and business.

This episode is brought to you by Merritt Healthcare Advisors. Merritt is a full-service investment bank with a unique focus on healthcare. Merritt leverages healthcare industry expertise of its owner, operators, entrepreneurs, advisors, clinicians, and investors to advise owners, doctors, innovators, and entrepreneurs in the healthcare sector about maximizing growth in running successful transactions. To learn more, visit www.merrittadvisory.com.

I’m joined today by Rani Khetarpal, who is a healthcare executive with over 25 years of experience across healthcare services, digital health, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and value-based care. Wow, that’s a lot. As CEO of NavPoint Health, she leads the development and growth of scalable, tech-enabled solutions that transform patient navigation and care coordination. She also serves as president for the Academy of Oncology Nurse & Patient Navigators, advancing national efforts to elevate the navigation profession and promote health equity. With that intro, Rani, welcome to the show.

Glad to have you here. How are you?

Rani Khetarpal: 01:49  

I’m good, I’m good. It’s great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Zak Eisenberg: 01:52  

Of course, of course. I know. We’ve been talking about this for a while now, and I’ve been excited to have you on the show, because I know what you’re doing at that point is so transformational to an area of healthcare. I think most people don’t pay much attention to. But before we get into that, I really like to start by jumping into the background of the guests on the show and founders in your position to just learn about your journey.

How did you end up here? Tell us about Rani, and I just want to start by discussing your background. How did you end up studying business? What drove you to that? And then take us through the next steps of after your college, your time in college, ending up in, healthcare, and then eventually at GSK and and from there on, please jump in.

Rani Khetarpal: 02:46  

Yeah. Thank you. Gosh, you’re taking me back now, Zak.

Zak Eisenberg: 02:52  

That’s the intention.

Rani Khetarpal: 02:53  

Yeah. You know, five years. So not that long ago. No. So I I think I was on the med school track through college, high school, college, early college, I should say early college years.

And in my early college years had an opportunity to back in the when you could do this type of volunteer work is be engaged in a volunteer ship at a local children’s hospital in the surgical ward. So I was not involved in surgeries, but I was involved in, you know, aftercare, etc. and I realized it’s not really what I wanted to do it. It’s I loved the patient aspect of it, but I would see the physicians and I would see the surgeons, and I really wanted to go into pediatric surgery. I didn’t. Very narrow minded and very narrow focused that way.

It’s like there’s only one thing in medicine, and that was pediatric surgery. I couldn’t do anything else. And so I at the same time, was sitting in on a couple of business courses and realized it was actually happened to be a marketing course. And I was really, really enthused about the content and really engaged in that audit that I was doing of that course, and realized that that might be a better path for me. And to much chagrin of my parents at the time, I switched my major and went into business and graduated with a business degree, and that sort of led me down a path of still being very much intuitive about the science piece of what I had learned.

But, you know, obviously very geared towards the business side. And, and pharmaceuticals seemed like a really good fit. Someone suggested to me I had no idea about the industry in general back then, and someone suggested it to me as a good marriage between my my knowledge base that I had picked up in, in college and and so I pursued that. And that’s where it all started.

Zak Eisenberg: 04:59  

Well, interesting. So if I heard all that correctly, you really started on the pre-med track. You were really, really focused and you had this really one memorable experience flash bulb moment of this course, getting interested in business and also maybe combined around the same time with this internship that opened your eyes to maybe what your life would be like if you had taken this other path. So it all changed right then. And so you graduated with a business degree, and what did you end up doing after that?

You said you ended up focusing on pharmaceuticals or more traditional medicine. Where did you.

Rani Khetarpal: 05:43  

Yeah I did, I focused on pharmaceuticals. I took a I like to call it a crash course in sales right out of college, because I needed to move to a city to to join my boyfriend at the time. A significant other and who turned out eventually I turned out to be my husband. So it worked out. But I needed to find a a role where he was.

And so I ended up working very briefly for back in the day it was called BT Office Products. It was then got bought out by Corporate Express, which then eventually got out, I think by OfficeMax. Anyway, I sold pen and paper. I was I was in office, but I was.

Zak Eisenberg: 06:25  

Classic business school problem: selling pens.

Rani Khetarpal: 06:28  

It was it was literally I was selling pens in a B2B environment. So it was, you know, but it was it taught me a lot about, you know, just sourcing and top of funnel and, and just, you know, for someone who’s never sold really in their life outside of I sold fine jewelry at a department store during college for money. But I didn’t really. I didn’t, you know. You don’t know how to do that.

It’s it’s a whole different sell in a B2B marketplace. And this was back up in the Bay area during the tech boom in the 90s. And so I learned a lot. I learned quite a bit about just pure selling. And I was a, you know, I was 100% commission based for a little while there.

I it was, you know, I look back on it and thought that was that was a really interesting time. But it was I was very successful at it. And I realized that I really enjoyed working with people. I enjoyed looking at people’s businesses and really, you know, kind of understanding how how things work. I mean, you think about office supplies as, oh my gosh, it’s just a pen or a piece of paper, but there’s a cost and an infrastructure that, you know, for some of these very large organizations that can be pretty significant.

So when you’re dealing with procurement and buying and things like that. It all is part of a bigger formula, right? So I learned a little bit about everything in that role, but realized I did want to get back into healthcare. It wasn’t my end all be all. And so I ended up I called it a cattle call interview.

They used to have these back in the day before the internet was a thing. And like, you know, LinkedIn jobs and all of this stuff, you actually opened up the paper and you would see what, you know, where the job, you know, fairs were and you would you would go. And so pharma companies back in the day would have their own job fairs where they would set up in a hotel, they would advertise in the paper, you would show up with your resume in hand, and you would go and interview, and I did I did a couple of these and ended up getting a couple of offers for becoming a pharmaceutical sales rep in, in the Bay area. And I took I took a role with Abbott, you know, about six months after I graduated college to, to start my career in pharmaceuticals.

Zak Eisenberg: 08:44  

So you really entered or re-entered, I should say, the health care space through sales, because you had had some experience outside of healthcare. Did you find? Because I find this interesting. Lots of people I speak with who have been in healthcare, especially on the entrepreneurial side, really, most of them have never worked outside of healthcare. And in some ways, that’s a good thing.

In other ways, it creates some challenges. How have you found that beneficial or not in your healthcare experience and endeavors? As if you did you learn some best practices or just.

Rani Khetarpal: 09:30  

You know.

Zak Eisenberg: 09:31  

Lessons from outside of healthcare that maybe apply in healthcare? Because obviously certain things can’t because of, you know, kickback issues with physicians. But Yeah. Just curious your experience.

Rani Khetarpal: 09:45  

Yeah, I did a lot of the skills that I picked up during that. I used to call it my externship during that, during that six months of, of me doing the office supply sales, a lot of those, a lot of those knowledge skills, you know, just tactical skills were definitely transferable. I mean, when you are in a 100% commission, you better be spending your time where you’re going to get paid. And so, you know, there was definitely in in pharma sales back then is very different than it is now. But you know, you you had your list of, of providers that, that you were given to you by, by the, by the company and you would make your rounds and bring them samples and educate them on your product.

There’s no hard line of like, you know, sign on the dotted line as a pharmaceutical sales rep. They’re, you know, in in certain other functionalities within pharma, there are but not as a field rep in that capacity that I was in. And so, you know, you’re going to get paid whether they they write your product or not. Certainly your bonuses are based on market share and growth and things like that. But you’re not leaving that office with a, a, a, you know, wet signature to say, I am going to write ten, ten prescriptions of your product.

So you really had to understand where you’re going and what what what is driving your business. And that’s really everywhere, right? Even today, I have to know what’s driving my business. I have to know what bucket of revenue is coming from, what service line and what product, and who’s going to be giving me that revenue. And where do you spend your time and what what, you know, stage of the sales cycle is the deal in all of those things are fully transferable.

So as as I made that transition from, you know, selling papers and pens to now calling on providers to educate and drive market share. A lot of that knowledge was transferable and continues to be, which is really interesting, right? You don’t you don’t stop applying that knowledge. I always say that in any position, I don’t care if you’re an engineer. I don’t care if you are an, you know, an executive assistant.

You are always selling something, right? Whether it’s my head of engineering is telling me, hey, Rani, we really need this, this particular application for this, right? And this is why he’s selling it to me? Because I have to tell him. Yes.

Right. So I don’t care what what functionality you’re in, you’re always going to have to have some component of that sort of convincing to, to get your job done. So that was that was a really great opportunity those first six months to, to really hone like be introduced to that in a very like crash course way, but also be able to refine that over time as a and use that as a foundation.

Zak Eisenberg: 12:44  

That’s that’s an interesting it’s an interesting response. I, I tend to agree with that, that selling and just that communication is something that oftentimes you see technical founders not really able to to do very well because they haven’t been in those, those types of positions. And that isn’t a skill set or a muscle that they’ve really had to exercise very much. But okay, so you moved into pharmaceuticals and you really haven’t gone back. You spent the rest of your career in healthcare.

So you were in sales for a while. And I think you said for Abbott. So walk me through the next, next stages. Where did you go from there, and what were the next experiences?

Rani Khetarpal: 13:36  

Sure. So I spent a couple of years at Abbott. Then I transferred to another pharmaceutical company, which Eli Lilly, which everybody knows of. And then from there, I took some time off to have my first child, and then I went back to work for GSK, and I stayed at GSK for about almost 13 years, 13, 13 actually deliver. 13.

And I just that was the that was the organization where I truly was able to grow professionally into different areas, including leadership and various areas of the commercial organization, different roles, different therapeutic areas, and really be able to grow my skills not just as a representative, account manager, strategy, etc., but also as a as a people leader and develop those leadership skills. I was fortunate enough to go through their Emerging Leaders Development program, which was a two year program that was fantastic. It was very, very well done. I also used that time. I got my MBA at that time from Saint Joseph’s University out of just outside of Philadelphia.

Go Hawks and was part of their first MBA program, executive MBA program focused on pharmaceutical marketing and management. So everything I was doing within that coursework, I was able to apply and vice versa. So everything that, you know, we were I was doing on my daily work was able to actually bring back into the classroom and with my cohort to to really work through and apply into the coursework so I could see the thread of what I was learning in the classroom, as well as what I was doing in the field. And it was a wonderful opportunity to bridge that learning as well. And so I spent spent a good amount of time within, within GSK sort of building and, you know, climbing the proverbial ladder.

It was also my first, you know, kind of expose into oncology. I was got a role as a account manager focused on what they called critical and supportive care and oncology at the time. So really was able to to get my first view into the the oncology world, but also the business side of hospitals and health systems. So that was, I think, my first eye opener into how complex healthcare is from a business perspective and how decisions are made throughout the continuum. And that was that was a that was pivotal for my journey.

Zak Eisenberg: 16:36  

And yeah. And appreciate that. You were with GSK for a long time. So I’m sure you you grew a lot while you were there. Is that also where you start to develop an inkling that you wanted to start other companies?

And is that when you got the entrepreneurial bug, when when did this come into play for you? When did you start thinking that was a pathway that would make sense for for why?

Rani Khetarpal: 17:07  

That was an that’s an interesting question. I think I already I always had the entrepreneurial bug, always like since I was a child, right? I’m always the one like, let’s go sell lemonade, but let’s make cherry and strawberry and, you know, kiwi or whatever fruit was sitting around. I think I always I always had a little bit of that. I think, you know, going back to the office supply days, it was a very entrepreneurial job.

You were out there sourcing the clients. Nobody was giving you that list. You had to figure out where to go. You had to figure out who your client. I mean, I would show up at an office building, I’d go to the directory and I’d just write down company names and I’d start calling them, you know, that there was I think there’s a lot of little there’s been that spirit in me from the beginning.

When I had my my little nine months of off time, it was just under a year where I was when I had my child, I was sitting at home and I was doing side hustles, right. I mean, I don’t know, I was doing all kinds of side hustles. And at some point my husband was like, you got to go back to work. Like, this is not working for us. You’re costing us way more.

But, you know, I think it was just I, I always had this, this, this penchant for wanting to look at things differently, to innovate, to create, to build, to strategize, to motivate. Like all of those things that are super important, I didn’t I didn’t have a term for it, but I knew that that’s what really I really enjoyed doing. I’ve never had a role, Zak, and to this day never had a role where I have took replaced somebody else in a role, meaning somebody has left and they’re they’re backfilling. Right? I’ve never backfilled a role.

I’ve always taken a role that was either a new team, new product launch, you know, completely new role. We’re creating this role. This has never been done before. Like all of these, you know, new things, right? That’s every single role I’ve ever had.

Seriously, I’ve never backfilled a role. So when you think about that, that’s always been a part of my I think, DNA. So yes, when I was at GSK, to answer your question, that is, I think, where I formally realized that there was an opportunity for me to do this on a much bigger scale, I was scared out of my mind. I didn’t know, like I thought I was, you know, I was very much in over my head, but I knew I was in over my head. But there was just something in me that was like, I, I know, I know, this is it.

I know I have to do this, and and I just have to wait, wait for that window to make it happen. So. So yes, it was right where I was first, you know, really thinking, wow, I can I can actually have my own company.

Zak Eisenberg: 19:48  

So, so at what point did you decide to leave? Because I know you left to start another company. Well, what what made you take that leap and make that decision? Was it that you found some investors who were willing to back you, or the idea was just too good and it was keeping you up at night and you had to work on it, or you were working on it on weekends, and you saw enough traction that you wanted to actually take the leap. Where, when, when do you make that that decision.

Rani Khetarpal: 20:20  

Yeah, I. This is, this is this is a. Yeah. So so let me back up. When I was sitting, when I was in that role where I was really focused on health systems and, and sort of the business side of the health systems, I had an opportunity to sit in several different meetings when the ACA was dropped, and specifically around readmission prevention and the penalties that that they were going to ensue should they, you know, have readmissions with these different disease states.

And so, excuse me, I remember, you know, I did a lot of just research on my own on topics that were being discussed. So I didn’t look like an idiot when I was sitting there. And so I, I picked up an issue all about the ACA. And this was in 2010 and I was on a cross-country trip, and I read it and there was a little paragraph about, you know, transitional care, clinical transitional care. And by the end of the by the end of the flight, I had all these notes in the margins of the magazine.

I was on my way to a sales meeting and I spent the next three days not heads down, you know, writing in a notepad, not taking notes, but actually writing a business plan for for this. You know what this could mean, right? And I thought, this is it. The light bulb went off in my head. I had no idea where to start.

I had no idea what I was doing, and I flew back home. I kind of put it away. And I was in another meeting about three months later, and this topic came up again. And I’m like, I pulled out my notes and I’m like, oh my God, I got to figure this out. So there was a gal named Mary, there’s a gal named Mary Naylor out of the University of Pennsylvania who, you know, created this model of clinical transitional care.

And I thought, well, let me just let me just start there. So I called the switchboard at the University of Pennsylvania. I asked for Mary Naylor. They transferred me and she picked up. I was like, okay, here we go.

No idea what I was going to tell her, but I, I did, you know, say I read your. I was reading this article. Your name was mentioned. I would love to learn more. She was extremely generous, invited me to come visit her and her team and learn more about the program.

So I did, and I said, this is what I’m looking to do. I want to bring this commercial out of the academic setting. And she goes, I would love for you to do that. I just want this out there. And that’s kind of what started the idea of doing that.

I also know I knew enough to know I couldn’t do it alone. I needed a clinical partner. So I brought on a clinical partner, a physician. And over the course of the next three years, Zak, we worked on this on the side. We assembled a very, very small core team of folks that worked on equity.

We didn’t have a name yet. We didn’t actually formalize anything until just before we launched. And so so we were doing this off the side of our desk. We all had full time jobs, you know, we were not funded at all. It was just us ideating and and figuring out how we were going to do this.

We had a great model. After three years. We had no idea who was going to pay for it though, right? It was the age old question.

Zak Eisenberg: 23:21  

Of.

Rani Khetarpal: 23:22  

Pay for it. And at the time, Mary Mary Naylor said on MedPAC (Medicare Payment Advisory Committee). And she said, listen, we’re working on something. Just be patient. And so I did.

And, you know, we’re patient. And in 2014 they announced the transitional care codes. And we thought, here we go. We have we have a mechanism for payment now. So we we ended up starting the process to become a provider and become a bona fide practice and get an NPI number.

And in the meanwhile, GSK was going through a transition. So I was aligned to GSK oncology and and I didn’t know. I mean, I say my personal life, I was going through a divorce, I had two young children in elementary school, and I was going to be a single mom, and I had to work, and I had need to have benefits, and I needed all of these things. And so I the risk was tremendous for me to just say, I’m going to quit my job and I’m going to go do this and not get paid and, and not have benefits and all of this stuff. So there was a lot of dissonance in my head of, like, even if we do this, how, how, how am I going to do this, right?

But what ended up happening is the stars aligned is GSK Oncology was sold. Novartis actually came in and acquired GSK Oncology. And in that process, you know, some of the teams from GSK Oncology were disbanded and offered packages. And my role was one where I had an option to take a package, and I did, and that gave me the leeway to actually go and pursue this. So I gave myself a year and I said, okay, well, I don’t need to get paid because I have my severance and I have my benefits.

I mean, there was a very generous severance package because of my tenure at GSK. And I, I did something that I don’t recommend anybody to do. But again, I and just I don’t know. I liquidated my 401 K and I funded myself.

Zak Eisenberg: 25:37  

Wow. Bold.

Rani Khetarpal: 25:39  

Yeah. And I said I, I’m young enough that if this doesn’t work, I can build it back up. And I said, if nobody’s going to have if I’m not going to have confidence in myself, who else is going to have confidence in me? And so I liquidated my 401K. I used that as seed money, and I went forth with it.

And that’s how that all transpired. And GTC was born. Global Transitional Care.

Zak Eisenberg: 26:04  

Wow. What an interesting journey for your first Entrepreneurial endeavor really jumping into.

Rani Khetarpal: 26:14  

I don’t recommend that to anybody.

Zak Eisenberg: 26:19  

No, I understand, I understand but.

Rani Khetarpal: 26:20  

Back in the day, you know, and I’ve no idea how to start a company. I had no idea about fundraising. I had no idea about how. I mean, we were doing a family and friends round, so we did a very small family and friends round, but it wasn’t going to sustain us for what we needed. And so I had no idea that, hey, you can go get funding for practices, right?

Like we can do that. I had no idea about any of that. And so I did. What any naive person would do is I just took it upon myself and, and, you know, in one hand, you know, it, it it did actually build a lot of confidence in the company that we had the seed money and we were moving forward. Was there better ways to do it?

Absolutely. But but that’s, that’s that’s the way the cookie crumbled at the time.

Zak Eisenberg: 27:09  

Yeah, yeah. And it led to some really interesting things for you after as well. Yeah. So briefly, maybe before we get to where we are today and kind of your thoughts on, I’d say transition that healthcare is going through right now technologically. But also I think what’s happening at the federal level is is important.

Maybe just talk briefly about your time. And I’m just looking at your LinkedIn. I know we’ve talked quite a bit about your time at CVS, but Teva Pharmaceuticals and then and then Valeant before before CVS. How did this experience with global transitional care kind of set you up in a way to move into these other roles? And again, if you want to wrap up that story, I think listeners would be appreciative to kind of hear, well, how did all this end up with a global transitional care?

Did the did the bet pay off? And was it was it a happy ending? And what are the key takeaways for you from that that experience?

Rani Khetarpal: 28:25  

Oh gosh. Yeah I was I was it was a it was a good experience I think you know transparently I was I was very. Naive when I walked into it. And I you know, I’m coming from big pharma where I had safety nets all around me into running a company on a shoestring budget. We did we did raise a series A, which was really great very early on.

So that certainly helped things along. But, you know, as any young entrepreneur founder who’s never done this before, I made mistakes, right. And I had a wonderful team that supported myself and the company and the operations. I had a great team that I still actually, you know, in contact with and work with today. So that relationship is so important for any founder.

I think for your investors, especially those that are closest to you in that investment team. But with that support, you know, even with the mistakes that were made, you know, we were able to have a successful acquisition of global transitional care. And so and so that that concept is still, you know, still serving patients. And, and since that, you know, we were the first Medicare provider specifically for what was coined as transitional medicine. And now you see that a lot, right?

There’s a lot of folks in that space. So I always say that, you know, we were the first, which was really nice back in the day in 2014, but I’m really happy to see that the concept has achieved scale because that that means that more patients are being helped and that’s great. So after acquisition, I like to say I went, you know, it was a very intense few years there. And I went back to pharma, which was super familiar to me, and I took on a role in advocacy. And, and I it was a role that I, I was first exposed to, as you know, within GTC, because we obviously had a lot of advocacy that we were doing.

But on a personal sort of one on one basis, this was more organizational advocacy aligned specifically to oncology. So, you know, it it I was given a slew of, of, of organizations to work with, and we supported them, whether it was grant funding or sponsorships or education or working specifically with their membership. And one of those organizations that I was aligned to was Aon. And so the Academy of Oncology nurse and Patient Navigator. So I started my relationship with them as a as the contact for sponsorships and grants.

Yeah. So after we got acquired, I went I went back to industry where I, you know, I everything’s familiar and comfortable. And I took a role in advocacy and Teva, the role that I took on was it was specifically in oncology for Teva. And so I was part of their advocacy team. And it was it was a really nice transition for me because we were doing one on one advocacy with patients.

But this is more organizational advocacy and really gave me a bird’s eye view of of all the different types of support organizations out there. And it was actually my first interaction with Aon, Which proved to be sort of my destiny. I didn’t know it at the time, but I, I first was were my account, so I was first introduced to them and worked with them in the capacity of being their account manager for Teva. And so.

Zak Eisenberg: 32:13  

It’s come full circle.

Rani Khetarpal: 32:14  

And it’s come full circle.

Right. And and so I had a wonderful couple of years at Teva doing a lot of different things. And and like I said, it was a nice segue from the work that we did at Global Transitional Care, but I did also at my time at GTC, value based care, what we know as value based care now, we didn’t call it that per se back then. We were it was starting to gain a lot of momentum, right? CME that was created during the ACA was put forth a lot of these different programs, starting with the BPC model for for joints.

And then we’re going to cardiology and then the oncology care model or CM. And so I was contacted by Evelyn. Well it’s not. Wasn’t Evelyn at the time. It was a company called New Century Health that Evelyn acquired.

And New Century Health was looking to take on risk with providers. And wanted to bring somebody in to to lead that work. And so I went to went to New Century and made that transition out of pharma to go back in sort of a smaller environment, but really focused on building their value based care arm, their risk based, value based care arm for providers and eventually payers focused specifically in oncology and cardiology. And that was an amazing role, actually, as righteous at the beginning, where all of this thing was starting to come to head, right. BBC was becoming a buzzword.

It was there’s not a lot of information out there about it. Risk, on the other hand, was but true. Risk was a was a scary was a scary proposition. Right. Where you’re putting dollars in on the line.

And so new century you know the biggest the biggest area of impact in oncology for cost is drugs in oncology. And New Century had clinical pathways that that had impact on that. And so we created a model where we would take risk but also provide support services, etc. that would allow success within these practices in a two sided risk model. And so we eventually then also went into cardiology and eventually then took that model and looked at implementing it in the payer world as well. And being that sort of third party neutral between the payer and the provider, and at which time within that process.

Evelyn. Actually, by the time I started, Evelyn Evelyn was integrating youth century into their broader portfolio. And so it was a it was a really neat kind of experience into transition and organizational management and reorganization. And so it was it was but it was wildly interesting and, again, innovative. Right.

Again, going back to I’ve never done something, you know, that’s been stagnant and just backfilling. But we were successful. You know we had a successful run at it. And and then CVS came calling not long after, about a couple years into my role at, at New Century. Kind of right in that 2020 time frame and to to help to go over and lead value based care.

Zak Eisenberg: 35:40  

Yeah, that’s that’s a big name obviously. And it’s I believe right after CVS that you kind of find your way into starting your current your current entrepreneurial endeavor. At least the inklings of it. I know the official start date wasn’t until a couple years later, but yeah, get into CVS. It’s a big role leading value-based care for very large health care company CVS health.

When do you start thinking about. Leaving corporate again to start another company. Because clearly, clearly you have the bug for it. And at what at what point this time around. Because especially the last time maybe didn’t end up exactly as you had hoped.

Perhaps you had, you know, dreams of world domination as, as as lots of founders do. But you you had a good outcome. You had an exit. What? What happened this time around where you felt like you had to start working on that point, and you had to take this step again into starting your own company or another company.

Rani Khetarpal: 37:09  

Yeah. Between CVS and NavPoint, I did have a another stepping stone. And I was I took on a role at Moderna as VP of strategic partnerships. And and that was a very interesting role that sort of fed into one of the product lines for that, we’re pulling in and out point. It was originally meant to straddle sort of R&D and commercial, which it did, but it ended up being a lot of leading a sales team within the US and that sort of thing, and doing really interesting partnerships Around their vaccine portfolio.

I was originally hired to come in and think through globally how we could build services that would support their vaccine and pipeline. And starting with Covid, right. And Spikevax, it eventually sort of led to a hodgepodge of different things, which was very interesting. But I think the the most interesting part for me was understanding this kind of thread that everybody’s been trying to do of linking commercial and R&D. And that’s something that I carried forward with me.

I left Moderna in November of 23, and I took a package, and I took a time to say, I’ve never had time in the, you know, careers and all the roles that I’ve had. I’ve always went from one to the other, one to the other. I said, let me just take a breather and kind of decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. Right? I felt like I was at an inflection point.

I’ve done a lot. What do I want to do now? I don’t know. Right. You know, my kids were getting older and they were out of the house and doing their thing.

And so, you know, there’s a lot of free time. I think I did everything from becoming a travel agent to becoming a keto coach. You know, I mean, I’ve done a lot during that little transition time. And but I did get asked quite a bit to, you know, I was getting offers to come work for us, come work for us. And I said, no, I’m not ready to commit yet, but I’d love to do a project for you.

And that’s where I was first introduced to Naz Care, which is now its flagship product platform. And my co-founder, Linda Stepanov, and I sat on the board for A01 at the time, and she was talking about this at one of our board meetings, and I said, hey, listen, I’ve got I’ve got some time. I’d love to help you because she was looking for somebody to help with commercialization. She goes, you know, she’s one of those technical folks who just researcher loves the research, built an amazing product, has no idea how to sell it, and so she, she and I work together to build a go to market plan for Naz Care. And Naz Care was funded by the NIH through an SBIR grant and two rounds of it, actually.

And part of that grant is that you have to attempt to commercialize the product. They want it out there. So this was in line with their grant requirements. And so out of that work, out of that roadmap work came the need to create a commercial vehicle, which ended up being NavPoint. Obviously, you need somebody to drive the ship and or, you know, to navigate that.

And so, you know, we started to look at, you know, I said, Linda, you need a CEO. And she said, Rani, that could be you. And I said, sure, but it’s not going to be me because I’ve been there. It’s very intense. And I didn’t know if I wanted to do that again.

But after, after several conversations and time and her just. I can’t say no to Linda. She’s just. If you if you ever meet Linda, you know that. But she’s she was very convincing.

Zak Eisenberg: 40:49  

So she is good at sales.

Rani Khetarpal: 40:51  

She’s very good. She doesn’t know it, but she’s very good at sales.

Zak Eisenberg: 40:55  

Yeah.

Rani Khetarpal: 40:58  

All right. And so I said, sure, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll give this a shot. And here I am about a year and a half year and a half later. And it’s been an incredible ride so far. And I guess what, what really caused me to stop and think, to say, do I really want to do this again is, you know, I think it’s it’s a few things.

One is, is the the area of focus of NavPoint in navigation and care coordination. And I do think that there is a lot of opportunity in that to drive patient outcomes. I think it’s the glue in our healthcare continuum care continuum that is not it’s kind of it’s up until now, I think in recent times it’s been becoming a focus, but up until now it’s kind of like a side act, right? You’ve got all this other stuff and oh yeah, here’s a care coordinator and a navigator. A lot of people don’t even know what navigators do, right?

And I and I think there’s just this wonderful opportunity to bring this forward in a way that that window has not been present before. And so, capitalizing on the momentum that the Biden administration started and carrying that forward, I think was was a really unique opportunity. And I wanted to do it again. Zak, I think that again, I mentioned it before. I made a lot of mistakes the first time around.

And, you know, I have a lot of what ifs. What if I did this? What if I chose that path? What if I did that differently? Right.

What if I made this different, you know, would I still be would we be in a different spot with GTC? Not that it was an unsuccessful venture, but could we have been even bigger and could I have impacted more people? Right. And I think that this gives me an me, an opportunity to say I could do this differently. And it’s a very similar space in a lot of ways, but much more focused, much more refined.

And I think the time is right. I think we were a little ahead of our time with GTC, but the time is right now and the ability to strike strategic partnerships and the knowledge that I have gleaned in my journey, not just in my role, but from others and from people in my network, and understanding that, you know, you can’t do this alone, that you need folks that can advise you and help you and put people in the room that are much smarter than you. And and learn from them. And I think that that, sort of, that sort of angle is a lot different than where I was, you know, ten years ago. And I’m excited about the impact that we’re making in the momentum we have and what’s coming in the future for not just NavPoint, but the impact that NavPoint and what we’re doing will have on on both providers as well as patients.

Zak Eisenberg: 43:44  

Yeah. You know, most most groups I speak with who are entrepreneurs, most founders are multi time. And it’s and it’s for a reason. When you when you fail you learn a lot. It’s very rare that people with their first venture are really really successful.

Not that again you weren’t successful having an exit. I think a lot of people, even on their first venture, don’t have that kind of success. I think they just close the doors and go and learn. Learn on from there. But Rani, I know we’re running short of time and you actually hit on a macro theme that we could, we could pivot to for our last few minutes here, which is that timing is right.

Maybe you could just talk about in the context of patient navigation, then expand out from there of how you see the space having evolved over the last, say, five years in this space in particular. And then where you see it going over the next five years. And I think also you can if you can, you can comment really on just broad healthcare trends that you’ve noticed over the last five years as well. And you can tie that into why now is the right time for NavPoint, because you said that a couple times, but it’s often something that I, I talk about with, with founders and, and I often just think about is that so much of the time the, the winners in a particular market are the ones who, if they’re not exactly if they haven’t entered the market exactly at the right time, if they’re a little early, they’re the ones who can hold on the longest so that they can wait for the market to be ready. If it’s really if it’s really a product that people want, and it’s solving a problem.

But yeah, it would be great to hear your thoughts on those couple topics.

Rani Khetarpal: 45:41  

So just tackling the first question around, you know, how has it evolved? I think there’s been a couple things that have happened in the last five years. One is the evolution of value-based care and more providers and payers looking at risk models and service risk models and outcomes based payments. And, you know, whether it’s an I call it the incentive payment, which is, you know, more of that one sided risk, right. And true risk being where there’s a downside and you’re not hitting your your KPIs and your measures and you’re not making money.

And a lot of that, when you look at the the models that CME put forth early on, they were heavily dependent on care coordination and navigation. In fact, OCM had measures quality measures based on navigation. They required offices that are are participating in OCM to have what they called navigation. They didn’t define what that was. They didn’t require a certification.

They just said somebody needs to you need to have navigation. So that could mean that a medical assistant would step up and they would be designated a navigator. Right. And they would meet that requirement. But I think what that evolved into was there’s this there’s a lack of knowledge for these folks that are stepping into these roles to say, well, what am I doing here?

I don’t know, I mean, other than calling patients and making sure they’re making their appointments, what am I doing? What is navigating actually entail? And and so when so so that’s one thing, right. When when you have people stepping into roles that are are looking for education and information and support organically, you’re going to you’re going to have, you know, it come forward. But obviously the inclusion of care, coordination and navigation as quality measures in in value based care models, obviously was a huge step forward for for navigation in general.

The other the other thing that I think happened in the last four years is the Biden administration’s push around cancer navigation. There they you know, the first lady had a very specific focus on oncology navigation and ensuring that it was brought to the forefront. And so and the importance of it in care delivery and patient outcomes. And that that was a pivotal, I think, time for for folks like AAOM as well as others to come forward and say, yes, it needs to be a focus. It is pivotal in our care continuum, and we need to make sure that it it has the the necessary support.

And that’s where you saw, you know, the Pin reimbursement codes come about right during the Biden administration and their work there. So the principal illness navigation codes are directly geared towards and it’s across not just oncology. All chronic diseases really shows, you know, finally provides credibility and shows the impact that care coordination really has. And so I think all of this sort of is now.

Zak Eisenberg: 48:52  

And Rani has that, has that continued into the Trump administration.

Rani Khetarpal: 48:56  

It has it actually has.

So, so you know, there was a lot of doubt as to what was going to happen. And a lot of question marks with, with this new administration coming into play. And obviously, there were a ton of changes. But when you look at their, you know, focus of of Maha or making America Healthy again, and that speaks directly to care coordination and advocacy around chronic diseases, how do you manage your disease. Right.

So you’re not utilizing services that are expensive. And that speaks directly to care coordination and and advocacy and navigation. And so, you know, it it absolutely does. And I think, you know, we the community was very, very concerned that they were going to repel all of these, these things that the Biden administration does, but had had had done. But, but so far we have not seen that.

And there is sustainability actually within, within the work that Biden administration had done, because it does coincide very specifically to, to the new administration’s focus as well.

Zak Eisenberg: 50:04  

Interesting. Yeah. Oftentimes the administrative changes, both at the state level, but obviously at the federal level as well, have such an impact in in our space. You know, I was curious to hear how things may have changed. So where do you see it going from here.

Rani Khetarpal: 50:23  

Yeah. So I think.

The, the you were talking about what’s kind of trending and what’s next. Certainly the digital revolution navigation is needed. And that’s exactly the intersection that, that we’re NavPoint plays is that intersection of services and technology. So navigation I always say is it’s just starting to emerge. Right.

It’s it’s in its infancy in terms of the technology that it has to support it. So you know patient navigation record system is a fairly new concept. And it but it’s needed because it allows navigators to have their specific record system that allows allows them to document their interactions that are specific to their functionality. And then just like a biller would have that right to be able to to talk to Waze to AMR, that’s that itself is a technological revolution. And now points.

Really excited to be playing in that with Naz Care. I think too looking at the different types of navigation. So you’ve got clinical navigation, patient navigation which is sort of your social worker your your non-clinical navigation, psychosocial navigation. Then you have financial navigation, which is becoming more of a focused area with a lot more support and resources around it. And then clinical trial navigation as well, which is really, really important of getting patients not just into clinical trials, but keeping them there as well.

And so and that that is not as much as technology is really, really important for that. You know, use the buzzwords, right, AI generative. You know, all of that stuff is really, really important. There is an aspect of the human element that’s super important in navigation as well. That certainly cannot be replaced by, by by a computer or, or a database or whatnot.

And so you have to understand what that marriage needs to look like moving forward for maximum impact. And I think you’re going to see a lot more of that happen where you see some some cases are going to have a very heavy digital influence and a very heavy AI influence, and you’re going to see some cases where you just really need that human connection and you need that human to talk to another human. And so it’s still jury’s still out as to what percentage is what. And when that happens, I think that’s something that we are fleshing out in real time. But it’s really, really exciting.

I think navigation is is probably a few years behind the rest of our clinical, you know, colleagues in terms of digital innovation and technology. But but it’s exciting to see what’s going to be happening in the future with that.

Zak Eisenberg: 53:06  

Yeah. Interesting perspective. And I, I think you make a strong case for the timing for NavPoint. I think it is on trend though with what you see in the rest of healthcare, which is that historically, healthcare has not been a sector known for adopting new technology, particularly digital technology, communications technology, etc.. Obviously, you know, MRI and the sort of treatment technologies have been very much at the forefront, but in terms of operating the business of healthcare and delivering care in a more efficient manner has not been the focus area necessarily.

And that’s really starting to change. And yeah, I think you touched on it at the end there. I think I certainly has a good overlap with navigation as well, which I know we’ve talked about separately. But you know, Ron, I really appreciate you joining me today on the podcast. I think you you will give our listeners a lot to think about, about, you know, life’s journeys and people’s experiences.

A lot of people feel like there’s only one shot, which is a good way to approach it. But I think through life experiences make you wiser and more capable as you’re able to pull on different, different experiences and at times failures to set yourself up. So really appreciate you jumping on today and wish you wish you all the success with NavPoint. I’m sure. I’m sure you all will be successful, so appreciate it and thanks Rani.

Rani Khetarpal: 54:45  

Thank you.

Outro: 54:46  

And that wraps up another episode of Transaction Healthcare. Hit the subscribe button to get notified when we release new conversations. And if you are someone interested in learning more about these topics, visit us at merrittadvisory.com or send us an email at contact us at merrittadvisory.com.