Healthcare Simplified

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Jeff Toewe, CEO of Medxoom, joins us to talk about healthcare transparency and the state of healthcare delivery today.

Healthcare may be the only service in the economy where you don't know the price until after delivery. Often, providers don't know the cost because they don't know your plan. And you don't know if your cost is reasonable. That's a transparency problem. And it's where Medxoom comes in. They help members discover and have intelligent conversations about what a service should cost before it's delivered.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Geb Buchness, vice president of Paladina Health, joins us to talk about Direct Primary Care. Geb describes the two Direct Primary Care models out there, the consumer model and the fee-for-service model. He also talks about what employers need to make Direct Primary Care cost effective for them and the best way to select the right partner. Finally, he discussed measurements, tactics, and strategies for driving engagement.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Sandy Krauer, director of HR at Total Focus HR Solutions, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Allegeant, LLC, joins us to talk about the new legislation spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the rash of recent laws and programs, what are some of the key provisions that employers should be aware of? What implications and impacts will these new laws have on employers? And with all the moving parts in both COVID-19 responses and health care, what will affect employers' healthcare plans?

How many added sugars are there in a Quaker quinoa granola bar? Not many, right? Quaker's a healthy company, and you can't get more nutritious than quinoa, after all. In fact, there's 10 different kinds of sugars sprinkled in. That's just one example of how what we think we know about health may not be accurate.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Al Lewis, CEO at Quizzify, joins us to discuss healthcare literacy — what don't we know about our health and how is that affecting us?

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Peter Hayes, CEO Healthcare Purchaser Alliance of Maine, joins us to talk about the relationship between healthcare costs and the quality differentials in healthcare delivery.

Desiring to collectively move the dial on healthcare quality and affordability, Pete now leads a coalition of providers, plans, and hospitals to improve the quality paradigm and bring down Maine's high healthcare costs at the same time.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Charlie Moore, co-founder of DinnerTime, a web-based service that provides highly personalized and automated meal planning, sale-smart grocery shopping, recipe support and nutrition education to improve the health and well-being of its members. Charlie talks about the importance of the family dinner table, a sometimes-lost event, in today's busy family life.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Jim Hynes, executive administrator for Pipe Trade Services, Minnesota joins us. He'll talk about his career, his goals, and union health plans in general. Jim began his career as a union member and a pipe fitter. He planned to become a contractor, but life took a turn and Jim got hired as assistant administrator of the health and pension funds. That was 31 years ago. Today, he leads a healthcare plan that covers about 18,000 lives.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, Tim Koch, founder of Accarent Health, joins us. He'll talk about healthcare and bundled rates, especially how to use bundled rates to save money and eliminate waste. Tim has been working in this area since the early 1990s so he's got deep experience in it.

On today's episode of Healthcare Simplified, we have the one-and-only Sandy Krauer back with us. Sandy is director of HR for Total Focus HR Solutions. She's been with us on the podcast many times before, and today she's addressing a topic that's paramount in the modern world — compliance. She'll tell us about the new laws that came out at the end of 2019.

Healthy people are the low-hanging fruit of workplace wellness initiatives. Engaging the unengaged is a lot harder, and the one thing that usually keeps people from engaging is time.

I got to interview Alex Haschen from BurnAlong for the second time on Healthcare Simplified and it was even more informative than before (if that's possible).

Here's what we discussed:

• Workplace wellness misinformation
• Why money isn't as meaningful as an incentive as time
• Solving the engagement problem means solving the time problem
• Internal vs. external motivation