Healthassist in the News

Salem Evening News "Clearing the Way"
Tuesday, September 14, 2005
By Victor Tine
Staff writer

Sometimes, when you're trying to travel a dense jungle, it makes sense to hire a guide.

Think of the modern health care system as the jungle and Dianne Savastano has the compass and machete.

With 24 years of experience in the health care field, Savastano earlier this year started Healthassist, a personal consulting business she runs from out of her Manchester home.

"I consult with individuals and families on how to navigate the health care system," she said.

She does that by making sure clients understand their medical situation and know all their options. Savastano will help clients prepare for medical appointments or accompany them to the appointments, making sure they ask the right questions, comprehend the answers, and have support when they need it.

"I provide very personalized, customized coaching," she said. "My goal is to empower them so they can take control of that meeting."

By the time she started Healthassist this year, Savastano had seen the health care business from several perspectives.

She received a nursing degree from Rhode Island College and worked in direct patient care at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. She later moved on to a management job at the hospital. She has worked as a clinical director in a rehabilitation hospital, she said, and as a manager for a consulting firm specializing in worker's compensation cases. She has also been director of managed care for a medical insurance company.

Savastano earned a master's degree in business administration from Simmons College in Boston in 1999.
"I felt that I was able to sit in the seats of all the different stakeholders in the health care system," she said.

Savastano will do research on clients' behalf, such as checking into new or alternative medications. If a physician offers several different treatment options, she said, she will examine all of them so the patient can make an informed choice. Savastano emphasizes, however, that she doesn't give medical advice and shouldn't be considered a substitute for a person's physician.

Savastano also said she will organize a client's medical records and will handle issues concerning insurance coverage and claims, although she noted that Healthassist services are not covered by insurance.
Saugus attorney Stephen Spano made a referral to Healthassist when nothing else seemed to be working. One of his clients is an elderly woman who has some dementia and no surviving family members, so he handles all of her affairs. Savastano had sent some literature to his office and he decided to try Healthassist to help with the woman's chronic problems with incontinence.

"We had tried everything else," said Spano, a certified elder law attorney. He said Savastano was able to find a medication that got the woman's problem under control.

"I've been extremely pleased with her," Spano said of Savastano. "If I had another mini-disaster like that I would absolutely call her."

But Savastano said her services are not targeted exclusively to elders. She said she thinks her client population will be Baby Boomers with both children and elderly parents and who are probably used to paying several people for various services.

At the same time, she said, she wants to develop and maintain rapport with clients' doctors.

"Eventually, they figure out that I'm really helpful and that their patient is better prepared," she said. "My hope is that they'll see me as someone who's helping the situation."