SAN DIEGO– XiFin announced today that Kyu Rhee, M.D., MPP, will serve as Senior Strategic Advisor to help drive acceptance for expanded payor coverage of pharmacist-provided clinical services through medical benefits and the convergence of diagnostics and therapy. Dr. Rhee serves as a physician executive across the healthcare industry, and most recently, was Senior Vice President and Aetna Chief Medical Officer at CVS Health.
“Dr. Rhee is a nationally-recognized public and private sector health care leader who has spent much of his career working to improve our nation’s health system, especially for underserved and health disparity populations,” said David Pope, PharmD, CDE, chief pharmacy officer, XiFin. “He knows firsthand how valuable the evolution of the pharmacy-based clinical care service model is to filling provider voids and delivering the kind of convenient, integrated, patient-centric care expected today.”
Dr. Rhee will work with XiFin’s pharmacy division, OmniSYS, to build momentum behind the national movement to broaden and make permanent pharmacists’ role as proven providers of clinical services to help address physician shortages and improve healthcare access for the nation’s most vulnerable and underserved communities.
“Advocacy for our customers and the patients they serve is at the core of our company’s mission, and Dr. Rhee’s depth and breadth of experience, along with his vast personal network of national healthcare leaders among payors, providers, and government leaders will be invaluable in this collaboration,” said Kyle Fetter, XiFin’s Chief Operating Officer.
Dr. Rhee’s work will include support for passage of bipartisan legislation in Congress, the Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (H.R. 1770), to provide pharmacy reimbursement under Medicare part B for testing and treatment of COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus, streptococcal pharyngitis, and for certain vaccine services.
“XiFin and OmniSYS have been at the forefront of industry advocacy for years, and I’m eager to work together to affect positive change in healthcare access through the acceleration of the expanding role pharmacists play as members of primary care teams,” said Rhee. “Most people interact with their pharmacist more often than they do their doctors, creating an immense opportunity to empower pharmacists to offer a range of clinical services and to serve at-risk populations by improving health care access in care deserts and amid a worsening primary care shortage.”
While at CVS Health, Dr. Rhee led a team of over 1,500 doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals in the integration and delivery of clinical and population health solutions to improve health for up to 65 million people via commercial, Medicare, Medicaid, behavioral health, and other plans. This essential work enabled providers and patients to assure the right care at the right time through 850+ evidence-based clinical policies and activated 900+ data scientists using data, analytics, and artificial intelligence.
He previously served for a decade as Vice President and Chief Health Officer at IBM, where he was the lead physician, public health, and clinical executive leader for the company’s global workforce of over 350,000 in 170 countries. He had global responsibilities for IBM’s efforts to transform health through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence, and services for hospitals, health systems, providers, health plans, employers, governments, and life science companies.
Dr. Rhee also served as Chief Public Health Officer at the Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Director of Innovation at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). While at HRSA and NIH, he led numerous national initiatives related to prevention, health care quality, research, health equity and public health.
