Vynca Achieved Record Growth in 2020

Vynca saw record growth during 2020, having generated more than 1.16 million end-of-life planning documents that year, up 64% from the previous 12 months.

Advance care plans are a key tool in ensuring that patient choices are known and honored during the course of their serious or terminal illnesses. Often, the hard copy documents are not available or are lost before they can reach clinicians, resulting in the patient receiving treatment they may not have chosen.

“In 2020, Vynca has grown exponentially in terms of our relationships with health care organizations as well as the number of patients who are leveraging our advance care planning solutions to ensure their care preferences are easily and consistently accessible when and where they are needed,” said Ryan Van Wert, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Vynca. 

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Vynca develops technological solutions to bolster education and engagement in advance care planning conversations, shared decision making, digital completion of documents as well as accessibility of those documents to patients, families and health care providers.

Research indicates that advance care planning can reduce hospitalizations by as much as 26%, reduce health care costs, increase community-based palliative care and hospice utilization, as well as significantly increase the likelihood that care will be delivered in accordance with the patient’s wishes.

Along with societal and economic factors related to greater acceptance of hospice and palliative care and the need to reduce health care costs, the availability of Medicare reimbursement is driving renewed interest in promoting advance care plans among health care providers, policymakers and payers.

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Despite the benefits of advance care planning, many patients don’t pursue it or pursue it too late. Only 14% of patients with serious illnesses have advance care plans. Patients who choose to receive palliative care are the most likely to have a plan.

To-date, more 872,000 unique individuals in all 50 states have created advance care planning documents in the Vynca solution. Demand for documentation of end-of-life wishes and goals has also risen due to the high rates of mortality associated with coronavirus outbreak. 

“While no one could have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus pushed the topic of death and dying into our mainstream conversations,” Van Wert said. “We are proud of the role that we are continuing to play in ensuring that the end-of-life experience is dignified and consistently in line with an individual’s care preferences and goals at all times.”

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