What if employers just stopped offering healthcare benefits to their employees? Could that happen? If the astronomical cost of healthcare keeps expanding, some employers will have no choice.

That’s where our guest this week comes in. Shawn Gremminger is the President and CEO of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions. His organization works with regional coalitions of employers to help them advance health policy, leverage their collective power, and drive market change. In this episode, we talk about some examples of what that looks like in real time and how things like direct contracting may help employers continue to offer benefits while staying in business. 

Known for his wide-ranging policy expertise, and government relations experience, Shawn brings to the National Alliance a successful record of working with coalitions, employers and other healthcare purchasers, policymakers, and industry stakeholders toward the mission of achieving high-quality, affordable, equitable healthcare. He began his career as a lobbyist for the Children’s Hospital Association and has since held senior leadership roles at Families USA and America’s Essential Hospitals.

Decreasing cost. It’s the Holy Grail. The thing we all know must happen in order for healthcare to become sustainable and usable for the majority of Americans.

We know data analytics help. They help to identify those who are at the highest risk and who are the highest cost. But, what if we were able to look at those who are currently low cost and predict who might become high cost? Taking it one step further, could we then reach out to those folks and offer a clinical intervention built on relationship that might help prevent that high cost event from ever happening? That’s exactly the kind of model our guest today has built at Converging Health.

Dr. Conard operates at the intersection of clinical medicine, advanced analytics, medical group leadership, and business strategy for early and emerging companies. He began his journey as a solo practitioner, eventually growing his medical practice to over 510 clinicians over 20 years. After the practice was acquired by a hospital system, Dr. Conard became the Chief Medical Officer for a brokerage/consulting firm and led an innovation lab focused on effective health risk reduction interventions. Currently, he is the Co-Founder of Converging Health, LLC, a technology-empowered consulting and services company. Converging Health collaborates with at-risk entities such as self-insured corporations, medical groups, accountable care organizations (ACOs) taking financial risk, and insurance captives to enhance well-being, reduce costs, and improve member experiences.

When employers look at all of the point solutions that are out there to add to their list of employee benefits, the top three should be…

As a family medicine physician with an extensive background in advanced primary care, our guest today knows how true this is not just in theory, but in practice. Her work these days is getting employers to see the import of this investment as well. In her role as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Marla McLaughlin partners directly with employers to identify workforce health priorities, design targeted strategies and apply real-time clinical insights to improve outcomes. 

Dr. McLaughlin has dedicated her career to expanding access to high-quality primary care, guiding patients to the right care at the right time and fostering trusted patient-provider relationships. She believes the most effective healthcare combines technology with human-centric care to improve outcomes and experiences. McLaughlin brings that perspective and passion to Castlight Health and Vera Whole Health, where she plays a pivotal role in strengthening clinical operations, improving care quality and enhancing both patient and care team experiences.

“Let’s inspect what we expect.”

What a powerful statement. If we expect cost transparency, let’s inspect what those costs have been to date. If we expect freedom of choice, let’s evaluate how that has worked for employees up to this point. And let’s expect an “and” approach instead of an “or” approach. As I say often these days, the devil is in the details, so it only makes sense that we put some energy and effort into inspecting what those details are and have been so we can expect what they will be in the future. That’s exactly the goal and role of today’s guest. 

Jeff Bak is the President of Imagine360, whose mission is to reduce health plan costs for  employers, employees and their families. He has three decades of experience in managing and growing healthcare services companies. Prior to Imagine360, Jeff served as the global practice leader of the Health, Life Sciences & Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) division for Wipro Limited, and was the president and CEO of HealthPlan Holdings (HPH)—a leading healthcare solutions business.

Medicare for all. Not socialized medicine, just a single, government-run system that provides healthcare. 

Is it possible? Or even viable? Our guest this week on the Creating a New Healthcare podcast believes so. In fact, he sees it as the only way to ultimately address the affordability problem with healthcare, particularly for high cost conditions like cancer. In today’s episode, we talk with Dr. Troy Brennan about his book, The Transformation of American Health Insurance: On the Path to Medicare for All, and why a single payer, government system is needed, and how the changes the current administration has made to our public health systems is taking us backwards, not forward.

Troyen Brennan is an Adjunct Professor at Harvard Chan School of Public Health.  He was formerly the Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for CVS Health and Aetna. Before that, he was the President of the Brigham and Women’s Physician Organization and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.  He was also Professor of Law and Public Health at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health.  Brennan was formerly the Chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine. He has published six books and over 600 articles. 

Last week, we talked about the six key drivers of personal health with Dr. Tom Frieden. But how does that factor into our conversation about the value (or not) of wearables and supplements?

This week, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth and Producer, Jess Greenwood, are back to unpack that for you. We discuss the role wearables do and potentially could play in helping each one of us achieve and maintain better health. We talk about how important it is to understand that the six drivers of personal health may be simple, but they’re not necessarily easy and why that means individuals are not to blame. 

Most importantly, we offer an invitation. To those who are creating, supporting, or changing their own environments to support better health for themselves or their community. We want to hear from you! Please get in touch so we can share your story on the podcast.

As a society, and as an industrial complex, we’ve made health complicated…and expensive. But, epidemiology suggests that what we need to do to achieve and maintain personal health is really quite simple.

Dr. Tom Frieden returns to the show to talk about the second half of his book, The Formula for Your Health. Through extensive research and review of hundreds of epidemiological studies, he distills the findings down to six basic things we need to be doing in order to be healthy. Dr. Frieden acknowledges that there is nuance, but he also affirms that history is clear. There are other societies in the world that were and are far healthier than the US population, and NOT because they had wearables, packaged food, home massagers, or Pelotons. 

Dr. Frieden is author of the book, The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own. He is also the founder and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a global health organization that accelerates action against the world’s deadliest health threats. Resolve to Save Lives has worked with governments and other partners in more than 60 countries to save millions of lives. Dr. Frieden previously served as director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and New York City Health Commissioner, where he led efforts that increased life expectancy by 3 years and helped end major health crises including the largest US outbreak of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic, and responses to H1N1, Zika, and other threats.

It’s the start of a new year, and that means resolutions and recommitments to personal health and wellness. Undoubtedly, there were thousands of wearable devices purchased as presents over the holidays and many more in the post-holiday sale madness. Supplement commercials and social media ads are going strong as we start this new year. But, are these things actually necessary for health? 

Today, we kick off our Winter Season of Creating a New Healthcare with a deep dive into the wellness industrial complex. Jess Greenwood, Producer of the podcast, joins Host, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth to dissect what we’ve heard from the experts interviewed on the show as well as our own personal experiences. We debate the role of wearables in behavior change, the influence of the wellness industrial complex, where supplements fit into a healthy diet, and what the companies that make these products really want and need from their users.

If you’ve been a bit skeptical if that Oura ring can help you achieve max readiness or even if you’re convinced those Magnesium supplements will be the game changer this year, this conversation is for you.

As we close out the year, Dr. Zeev Neuwirth steps away from his usual interviews to share a heartfelt, personal message directly with you, our listeners.

Certified Nursing Assistants. They are the lifeblood of so much of what we do in healthcare, particularly in elder care, and yet they rarely share the limelight with the doctors, surgeons, and specialists. 

Our guest today, Peter Murphy Lewis, is a documentary film maker who started out just trying to educate the Nebraska government on the shortage of CNAs in their state. What started as a single, 20-min documentary has turned into multiple seasons of the hit show, People Worth Caring About. The docuseries highlights the work of CNAs in nursing homes, sharing their stories in order to change perceptions about the work they do and demonstrate the value and reward of this much-needed profession. 

Peter Murphy Lewis is a healthcare advocate and former CNA himself. His work spans television, podcasting, and marketing, with a focus on caregiving and long-term care. Born in Kansas, Peter’s path took a dramatic — and deeply personal — turn when a health scare forced him to reassess his priorities. What followed was a journey from academia and international politics to global media, entrepreneurship, and eventually founding Strategic Pete — a platform dedicated to helping small businesses and entrepreneurs grow. Now, Peter uses his storytelling skills to challenge misconceptions about caregiving, aiming to reshape how society values care and those who provide it.