Listening In (With Permission): Conversations About Today's Pressing Health Care Topics

Part Three of our three-part Data Podcast Series. In this episode of Listening In (With Permission), CPR's Director of Member Services, Ryan Olmstead engages in a captivating conversation with Julie Selesnick, Senior Counsel at Berger Montague, with two decades of experience in healthcare law. Together, they delve into the complex world of healthcare data transparency, legal challenges, and the ev...

"So when I say it's a gift, anytime a consumer gets enough information to make an informed decision, it's a gift." Listen In (With Permission) to Hugh O'Toole, CEO of Innovu, about the transformation happening in employer-sponsored healthcare. Hugh explains how data transparency is the key to making informed decisions and achieving significant cost savings, and how the new CAA regulation will help...

Suzanne calls up Candace Shaffer, Senior Director, Benefits at Purdue University to discuss the benefits purchasing strategies that she and her team have implemented and some of the tremendous savings as a result of those strategies. They also discuss what goes into thorough strategic decision making; utilizing your data, understanding your business, and seeking regular input from plan members are...

Andréa call Allison Sesso, President and CEO of RIP Medical Debt (RIP) to discuss the crisis of Medical Debt and RIP's unique mitigation strategy. They also discuss innovative policy on the state and federal level to help relieve consumers of medicals debt and make health care more affordable. "While we love our solution and we think it's really important to help resolve the issue for individuals...

Andréa calls Dr. Vikas Saini, President of the LOWN Institute to discuss their Hospital Index which measures a hospital's social responsibility, examining how hospitals rank in terms of health outcomes, value and equity. The index is comprised of 53 different metrics, Dr. Saini explains how they collect and analyze their data. This podcast is sponsored by Embold Health.

Julianne calls up Doug Aldeen, ESQ an ERISA Healthcare Attorney and General Counsel to discuss the Reference Based Pricing (RBP) landscape, specifically how RBP has evolved over time. Doug recounts his experience defending RBP companies from lawsuits and saw the evolution from uniform level reimbursement to variation depending on the market. "Ultimately, the reason these facilities were coming aft...

Sarah Hostetter, Managing Director, Physician and Ambulatory Research at Advisory Board speaks with Suzanne about the landscape of physician practices. Whats happening with acquisition of physician practices? Are there any independent practices left? Why do some physicians choose to join larger practices? Sarah digs into the data and sheds light on how the changing landscape affects physicians the...

Suzanne speaks to Marilyn Bartlett about the National Academy for State Health Policy's (NASHP) Hospital Cost Tool and her role in creating it. NASHP’s interactive Hospital Cost Tool provides anyone from policymakers to researchers with insights into how much hospitals spend on patient care services. The tool also shows how those costs relate to both the hospital charges (list prices) and the actu...

Suzanne calls up Gloria Sachdev to discuss the Employer's Forum of Indiana's (EFI) latest tool, Sage Transparency. Sage Transparency is a tool that brings together public and proprietary data on hospital pricing and quality. It gives users access to price and quality data for thousands of hospitals across the United States—and it’s free!

Suzanne calls up Karen Sepucha, PhD, director of the Health Decision Sciences Center in the General Medicine Division at Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School to discuss shared decision making. Shared decision making is "really focused on the physicians and the doctors and health care team bringing in what [they] know about the clinical evi...

Suzanne calls up Nick Reber, CEO and Founder of Garner Health to talk price transparency, analytics, and quality. So what do the data say? Well, they confirm a lot of what employer-purchasers are feeling at the moment. "We're seeing just about the fastest rate of health care inflation in our data ever." What's a solution? Price Transparency Data. We have all of this price transparency data, what a...

Suzanne calls Jen Porto, Manager of Leader Education at Headspace Health to discuss strategies on developing a culture of mental wellness at work. Jen and her team launched a leadership education program to equip managers with science-backed practices to drive cultural change in organizations, support mental health and well-being in the workplace and improve employee engagement, productivity and r...

Suzanne calls up Dr. Doug Salvador, Chief Quality Officer at Bay State Health and Board Member of the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM). Suzanne and Doug discuss the prevalence of diagnosis errors, steps to take to learn from them, and how to prevent them in the future. "You need to have some experts, in your organization in diagnosis and the diagnostic process. You need to set up le...

Suzanne calls up Thi Montalvo, VP, Analytics and Reporting at Transcarent, and Elodie Olsen, Senior Director North America Health Analytics Practice Leader at WTW to talk about wrestling data away from certain health plans, the reasons behind the proliferation of point solutions, and sometimes sneaky trend guarantees.

Suzanne calls Kelsey Brykman, Senior Program Officer at the Center for Health Care Strategies to talk about the intersection of primary care and health equity. Kelsey describes her work under the Promoting Health Equity through Primary Care Innovation in Medicaid Managed Care Project, working with a variety of state Medicaid agencies Kelsey and her team help them think through what levers they hav...

Suzanne calls Rachael Jones, Senior Vice President, Performance Analytics & Quality at Cotiviti, to discuss health equity and what employers and other health care purchasers can do to advance it. "You really have to have a comprehensive strategy that looks at clinical data, financial data, member stratification, gaps in care..." ​ "Beyond having that strategy, payers should also think about this p...

Suzanne calls up Bob Galvin, CMO of Blackstone and chairman of CPR's board of directors, to follow up on their previous discussion on the state of payment reform. So where are we at? Progress is slow, yet steady -- we've had rain delays, changing pitchers, changing managers, but the game isn't over. "It's hard getting through, inning by inning when you're creating something from a blank slate." Al...

Suzanne calls up Aneesh Chopra, Co-Founder and President of CareJourney, to talk about the current state of health care transparency policy and how the US is faring. So, what’s the mood on current regulations and government oversight? “The general feeling in the field is one of skepticism,” says Chopra, but he’s much more bullish on it. According to Chopra, based on research CareJourney conducted...

Suzanne calls Alice Hm Chen, Chief Medical Officer at Covered California, and asks about her work in quality measurement and health equity. As the nation's largest state-based health insurance exchange, how is Covered California thinking about its responsibility to deliver equitable care to its member population? "I think a key thing for everyone to embrace is, equity is quality...you won't get to...

Suzanne calls up Dr. Jeff Wells, CEO and co-founder of Marathon Health to talk about advanced primary care models and how it fits in with onsite and near-site clinic, and virtual care. Suzanne and Jeff dive into the term advanced primary care and how it differs from prior terminology used to describe high-value primary care strategies. In addition, they discuss why there is a lack of primary care...

Suzanne calls up Peter Lee, the former Executive Director of Covered California to talk about the last twenty years in health care reform. He explains how many of the payment reforms executed in the commercial space have really been on the margins, and many employees are spending more for worse care than ever before. So what's the problem? Lack of real alignment on measures, and not enough dollars...

Suzanne Delbanco speaks with Roslyn (Roz) Murray, a doctoral candidate at The University of Michigan School of Public Health and former Catalyst for Payment Reform Employee. Roz delves into her first peer-reviewed paper in Health Affairs, which concludes that the evidence on commercial value-based payment models is mixed. Suzanne and Roz dive into why there is such little research in the commercia...

“80% of providers believe that the unpaid caregiver should have a seat at table, but only 20% believe they actually do.” Suzanne Delbanco speaks with Alexandra Drane, Co-Founder & CEO of ARCHANGELS, diving into the critical role of caregivers and why they must be part of the clinical care team. She also discusses how ARCHANGELS’ Caregiver Intensity Index (CII) is designed to engage caregivers and...

Suzanne Delbanco speaks with Dr. Irene Dankwa-Mullan, Chief Health Equity Officer at IBM Watson Health and Deputy Chief Health Officer within the Center for AI, Research & Evaluation. As an industry physician and scientist working at the intersection of AI, health equity, and health care, Dr. Dankwa-Mullan speaks to best practices for employers interested in measuring and addressing health inequit...

Suzanne Delbanco speaks with Jason Richmond, Head of Consultant Relations at Ginger, a digital mental health care provider. Jason Richmond explores the supply demand imbalance between mental health patients and providers in the United States right now, and why the traditional provider network model to access care doesn’t carry over well into the mental health space. Jason describes the evolution t...