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

Andréa Caballero speaks with David Muhlestein, Chief Research Officer at Leavitt Partners, about his latest research titled "Growth of Population-Based Payments is Not Associated With a Decrease in Market-Level Cost Growth, Yet." They discuss what really dictates good competition within a health care market, how much revenue is necessary to make a business case for reforming a delivery system, and...

Suzanne Delbanco calls Peter Kilmartin, Consultant Effectiveness Leader and US Leadership Team at Mercer Health & Benefits, to discuss the four areas where employers can build out their health care purchasing strategy. With the Vitals For Change Scorecard, co-developed by Mercer and CPR, employers can benchmark their benefits purchasing strategy against their peers based on how they are 1) paying...

Did you know that 40% of Americans struggle to come up with $400 to cover an emergency? This reality helps contextualize the very real decisions low-wage workers face as they decide to seek health care services, especially if they have a high-deductible. Suzanne discusses this issue with Jeff Levin-Scherz, National Co-Leader of Willis Towers Watson’s Health Management Practice, and Assistant Profe...

What if people with substance use disorder could have a one-stop-shop for finding high-quality treatment options? Suzanne Delbanco checks in with Sam Arsenault, Director of National Treatment Quality Initiatives at Shatteproof on their provider rating system to tackle that very issue. Substance abuse is a critical health care area full of misconceptions, stigma, and low-quality providers forgoing...

Suzanne catches up with Niall Brennan, President and CEO of the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI), to ask the tough questions on price and utilization data for employee-sponsored health care. If you're interested in understanding what is driving health care costs and using data to figure out the best ways to curtail spending growth, then this episode is for you!

Suzanne dials John Bass, Founder and CEO of Hashed Health, who shares his insights on how and why blockchain can reduce costs, create trust, and improve competition in health care. Listen in as he breaks down what blockchain is and how, as a data infrastructure, it can reduce friction in different health care value chains like bundled payment and provider credentialing. If you're hearing about blo...

CPR's senior project and research manager, Roz Murray, calls Jaime King, Associate Dean and Faculty Director of the UCSF/UC Hastings Consortium on Science, Law and Health Policy, to learn about current state activity to address rising pharmacy prices. State Medicaid agencies are proposing different solutions like closed formularies and capping annual drug spending. Listen in to hear what Jaime thi...

Suzanne speaks with Malini Nijagal, MD, MPH, of UCSF to learn what motivated her new call to action in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, which outlines how maternity care providers can prepare for the shift to value-based payment. Malini also shares how episode-based payments can unlock higher-quality maternity care and even help address our nation's maternal mortality crisis among...

Suzanne speaks with Larry Becker, former Director of Strategic Partnerships and Alliances for Xerox Corporation, and Jean Slutsky, Chief Engagement and Dissemination Officer at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), to hear about the organization's research and what it means for employers and others in the health care industry.

Why is America's most common health care challenge the one we are least likely to talk openly about? Ryan Olmstead discusses mental health challenges with Mary Kay O'Neill, MD, MBA, senior clinical consultant with Mercer. ON MAY 1... Hear from Mary Kay directly during CPR's Virtual Forum featuring employers, experts, and innovators discussing mental health. Register here: https://www.catalyze.org/...

Listen in as Suzanne shares an intimate conversation with a health policy expert who has survived an opioid addiction. Though anonymous, her story shines a bright and personal light on what it is like to live with pain and seek treatment, giving employers and purchasers a new perspective on how to better manage substance use in their employee population.

Are we really transitioning away from fee-for-service? Suzanne calls Bob Berenson, MD, Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute, to discuss the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule, why it's flawed and why it's so important we fix it as we move to pay providers based on value.

Listen in to CPR's Director of Member Services, Ryan Olmstead, catch up with Lynn Quincy, Director of the Altarum Healthcare Value Hub. They discuss Lynn's favorite issue brief (http://www.healthcarevaluehub.org/advocate-resources/rethinking-consumerism-healthcare/), the pitfalls around Consumer Director Health Plans, and alternatives employers can take to lower health care costs without simply co...

Suzanne dials up Farzad Mostashari, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Aledade, an innovative organization with the mission to support primary care providers (PCPs) in the shift to value-based payment. Farzad explains why independent PCPs are set up to run and succeed as accountable care organizations (ACOs).

Why is it so important that employers pay close attention to their formularies? Emily Roesing calls Lauren Vela, Senior Director of Member Value at the Pacific Business Group on Health, to learn about the headaches and waste caused for employers, patients, and providers from our current method of pharmacy benefit management and how employers may be able to join forces to improve it.

Suzanne chats with Larry Levitt, Senior VP for Health Reform at the Kaiser Family Foundation, about employers' role in health care coverage given the passage of the recent tax law.

Roz Murray, CPR's Senior Project and Research Manager, called Jeff Rideout and his team, Lindsay Erickson and Ginamarie Gianandrea, to learn about the Integrated Healthcare Association's (IHA) effort to standardize quality measurement for accountable care organizations (ACOs). Roz learns why they took on this endeavor and their plans to obtain broader use of the measure set.

Suzanne is curious to learn from Michael Chernew, Health Economist and Professor at the Harvard Medical School, about employers' role in demanding and participating in evaluations of payment and delivery reform programs and what they need to know when launching a new program to ensure it can be subject to rigorous evaluation.

Suzanne calls Jeff Goldsmith, President of Health Futures, Inc and National Advisor to Navigant Healthcare, to learn why he has long been cynical of accountable care organizations (ACOs) and inquire about other market-based strategies that may more effectively improve health care.

When Suzanne Delbanco called Dana Goldman, Director of the Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics at the University of Southern California, she learned about what leads to waste in pharmacy spending and what employers can do to get greater insight into that waste. Dana also shared his insights on potential opportunities for employers to tackle spending in the pharmaceutical space.

Andréa Caballero dials up Jonathan Mathieu, VP of Research and Compliance & Chief Economist at the Center for Improving Value in Health Care (CIVHC). They discuss the provocative research using the Colorado All Payer Claims Database (APCD), and how the Scorecard on Payment Reform pilot is needed to support the claim that the Centennial state is ahead of the curve on the path towards a value-orient...

Ryan Olmstead, CPR's director of member services, calls Lisa Yee, executive director of the Silicon Valley Employers Forum, to hear about her work with large employers in Silicon Valley in order to best support them in delivering the best health care benefits to their employees.

Surprised by health plans' lack of measuring patient experience of care, Suzanne calls up Tom Lee, Chief Medical Officer at Press Ganey, who is an expert in this space. Tom shares how technology is changing how this information is collected and his thoughts on the future of amassing data on how patients feel about their care experience.

Will we continue to see huge mergers and acquisitions in 2018? What impact will they have on consumers? What should employers be optimistic about for next year? Emily Roesing, CPR's Director of Business Development, calls up Bob Kocher, Partner at Venrock and crafter of the Affordable Care Act, to get his predictions on these and other key health care questions for 2018.

Andréa Caballero dials up the joint sponsors of the Virginia Scorecard on Payment Reform pilot- Doug Gray, Executive Director of the Virginia Association of Health Plans, and Beth Bortz, President & CEO of the Virginia Center for Health Innovation. They discuss everything from how Virginia is a micro-version of the nation, the challenges to implementing shared risk contracts, and how the Innovatio...