Steve Wiggins has seen a thing or two in his more than three decades as a healthcare entrepreneur. His Oxford Health Plans introduced “pods,” a precursor of the Accountable Care Organization and he led HealthMarket, an early player in the consumer directed health plan space. He’s carried the same themes into his current  role as Read More

Interoperability has a been a buzzword in healthcare for about a decade, but sometimes it doesn’t seem like we’ve gotten that far. In this podcast, Rhapsody’s EVP of Product & Strategy, Drew Ivan and I discuss interoperability: its past, present and future. Here’s what we covered: 0:20 What is interoperability anyway? 2:50 Why do we Read More

Biotech company Agenus is launching a “digital security offering” that will let people invest directly in a single biotech product, rather than the whole company. Jeff Ramson, founder and CEO of strategic communications firm PCG Advisory Group, became fascinated by the concept and reached out to me to discuss it, even though he is not Read More

Belong.life bills itself as the largest social network for cancer patients and caregivers. With over 100,000 participants, Belong is approaching the scale at which it can generate meaningful insights, and leverage machine learning and artificial intelligence to create a “hyper-personalized” experience. I spoke recently with Irad Deutsch, Chief Technology Officer. He described how his personal experience Read More

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) claim to keep drug costs under control, but their convoluted business models and tactics don’t always result in the best deal for employers. Reference based drug pricing is an interesting alternative approach. It’s used for drug cost control in other parts of the world and within the US for things like Read More

What’s worse than needing help with gait, mobility and balance? Being told you need a walker. No wonder, when the typical walker basically screams “frail elderly,” and is difficult to use as well. Neurologist Patricia Kavanagh was struggling to get her patients with Parkinson’s and other movement disorders to use a walker.  So she teamed Read More

Massachusetts eHealth Collaborative CEO Micky Tripathi has been leading the charge on electronic health records and interoperability for more than 15 years, pre-dating HITECH, meaningful use and the Affordable Care Act. In this podcast, we caught up on the state of play, including : (0:13) How e-health looks today compared with what was envisioned originally Read More

Nurse triage lines have gone through three phases of evolution. In phase 1 they were implemented to ‘check the box’  for member education, phase 2 brought “demand management” to keep patients out of the emergency room, and now in phase 3 health plans are creating a gateway to innovative programs and services. In this podcast Read More

Despite all the noise and dysfunction on healthcare in Washington, DC, the move toward value based payments is continuing apace. But providers and payers continue to straddle the fee-for-service and value-based worlds, slowing and complicating the transition. MediQuire helps providers and payers measure, improve and get financial reward for improvements in performance and patient outcomes. Read More

SafeRide Health is focused on redesigning the non emergency medical transportation experience to reduce patient risk and streamline care coordination. In this podcast interview, co-founders (and brothers) Robbins and Whit Schrader talk about how losing a friend to DUI in their teenage years got them started down the entrepreneurial path to what became Saferide. Overview Read More