In my continuing pursuit of interesting and dynamic people in North Texas, I give you Jim Rosengren, CEO of Heritage Health Solutions Inc., based in Flower Mound’s Parker Square. During a recent interview with Jim and his Senior Director of Marketing Patti McCoy, I learned about a service I never knew existed. “On a piece of paper in the kitchen, my wife Lisa and I mapped out the mission, vision and values of Heritage,” Jim said proudly.
In 2007, Heritage was awarded the contract to provide healthcare to detainees who have been incarcerated under the U.S. Marshall Service (USMC), which is part of the Department of Justice (DOJ). “Heritage is predominantly a federal contractor in the healthcare space. We manage and coordinate the entire range of healthcare for detainees who must leave the jail for medical care they can’t get at the incarceration facility,” Jim said. “We are the first contractor to ever provide this service for the DOJ. We began work in November of 2007 and we have a 10-year contract.
“For example, the Denton County jail has a health component which consists of a visiting physician and nurse on staff. So, if a prisoner needs medical care they try to get that taken care of inside the prison facility itself. We come into play when that prisoner would have to leave the jail facility to get medical care. It might be an emergency treatment or, it might be someone in need of dialysis or some other type of alternative care. We arrange and manage all of that, and we do it in every state and the territories of Puerto Rico and Guam,” he added. It has been documented that the company saves the DOJ millions of dollars annually by providing a national Preferred Provider Network (PPO), claims processing and pharmacy services delivered directly to the detention facilities.
Last year, Heritage provided services to detainees in more than 800 jails. They provide everything that your health insurance provides for you. Example: your health plan gives you a network of providers and it negotiates discounts with those providers to determine what the reimbursement will be. Then, they pay the providers when the claim has been adjudicated and deemed appropriate. In addition, they provide clinical management and oversight, plus information security of all the data bases of private health information specific to the patient.
In similar fashion, Heritage, with a network of pharmacies approaching 65,000, contracts directly with the pharmacies to provide both mail and retail access. “As long as they are in the custody of the USMC we provide this service. Once they are out of the custody of the USMC, or have been moved to another jurisdiction, we no longer provide any services to them,” Jim said.
A longtime Flower Mound resident, Jim had a distinguished career with the U.S. Army, retiring after 23 years with the rank of Major. He has 2 sons, both of whom are service veterans. Speaking of veterans, Jim’s company handles their needs too. “It’s pretty hard for us not to provide coverage for a veteran in any situation,” he said with strong conviction in his voice. “But we do more than fill that need! We provide first and emergent prescription fill program. If you remember when Hurricane Sandy hit, it closed the V.A. hospital and veterans were displaced literally across the country to get away from that disaster. We provided emergency pharmacy services for those veterans regardless of what location they were in the country.” Heritage employs 45 people, about 20% of whom are veterans, taking up the entire upper floor of building 300 in Parker Square.
The V.A. is divided into 21 regions, known as Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISN). Under those VISNs are medical centers and under those centers are community based outpatient clinics (CBOC). “When a vet goes to a clinic or CBOC to see their physician or nurse practitioner, and they need a prescription filled immediately, we provide that service. We have contracts in 45 states and, the District of Columbia and all territories. We manage that now for veterans in locations numbering up to 730 across the country,” said Jim. Incidentally, Patti McCoy, mentioned earlier, was a Captain in the U.S. Air Force. Jim Rosengren is a governing board member of Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Flower Mound. His awards and accomplishment are legion, and too abundant to fit into this article.
However, I feel it must be mentioned that Jim created the Help a Hero program, which, among many other features, hosted veterans and wounded warriors, along with their families, at Texas Rangers games each month during baseball season. He rallied support of the Flower Mound and Lewisville businesses for provisions of household goods, clothing and toys for a veteran who was a single parent, unemployed and living in daily housing. Jim made sure the repairs on a veteran’s disabled car were made so that the veteran, who had recently returned home from Iraq, could travel to and from work and maintain employment. He also provided a donation to the nonprofit organization, Keep Flower Mound Beautiful (KFMB), to repair a Vietnam veteran’s home, which included fencing, siding, painting, drywall and spackle.
Then, he immediately matched his donation with another donation to KFMB for any other community veteran who may fall under similar circumstances in the future. A fellow of the American College of Health Care Executives (ACHE), Jim received his Masters in Health Care Administration at Baylor University and was selected as an adjunct professor at Trinity University. It was a genuine pleasure to meet another one of those pillars we often hear about when the subject of community advocacy comes up. Jim is also energetically involved in the Flower Mound and Lewisville chambers of commerce and his commitment to those communities is evident through his sponsorship of their events.
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