Radio Advisory

The United States spends nearly twice as much per person on healthcare as other wealthy countries, yet US life expectancy was 79 years in 2024, compared with 83 years across peer nations. But the problem isn't simply that the United States spends more. Every healthcare system makes trade-offs among affordability, access, outcomes, choice, and innovation. The question is whether we're honest about the choices we're making and what we're willing to give up.

For her final episode of Radio Advisory, Rachel (Rae) Woods takes the conversation live to Advisory Board's Chicago Summit with Aaron Carroll, president and CEO of AcademyHealth, pediatrician, and health services researcher. They use international healthcare systems not as blueprints, but as mirrors for the choices facing US healthcare leaders. They explore why higher spending hasn't consistently delivered better access or outcomes, what the United States has implicitly chosen to prioritize, and how leaders can stop promising everything at once and make the trade-offs inside their own organizations more intentional, transparent, and explainable.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

How are OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google shaping healthcare experiences both within and outside the walls of the traditional delivery and payment system? There are hundreds of AI applications for healthcare. But when we look under the hood, they all come back to a small handful of foundational models.

These models are not only powering your patients’ healthcare experience with direct-to-consumer tools, like chatbots, they’re powering the AI tools you use to interface with your patients or members, and to run your business. That means these companies may have considerable influence over your organization—whether or not they show up explicitly on your vendor registry.

In this episode, host Abby Burns and Advisory Board expert Ty Aderhold explore what this influence looks like in practice, the risks that accompany our collective dependence on a few organizations, and how leaders should think about their own roles in shaping these early innings of AI in healthcare.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

With a new payment model, CMS may have quietly created the first reimbursement pathway for AI-delivered, value-incentivized behavioral healthcare. Is that a good thing?

In this episode, host Abby Burns and Dr. Tristan Gorrindo delve into how the behavioral healthcare landscape in the U.S. has changed with the pandemic-era explosion of virtual BH platforms, and consider what that change has—and has not—achieved. Then they cast their eyes forward and unpack how the new ACCESS Model out of CMS will be a testing ground for behavioral healthcare transformation: technology-delivered care paid for using outcomes-based payment. Dr. Gorrindo, a pediatric psychiatrist, behavioral health researcher, and Chief Medical Officer of evolvedMD, argues that we should be rooting for the success of the ACCESS Model, while simultaneously anticipating and being ready to act on several avenues of unintended consequences.

The conversation caters to any healthcare leader with a stake in finding a more effective way to pay for clinical care, and in understanding the early innings of AI-enabled care delivery.

In this conversation, Dr. Gorrindo references 9-8-8, the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 988 is “a national hotline offering one-on-one support for mental health, suicide, and substance use-related problems for anyone 24/7.” (SAMHSA.gov) The 988 number has been operational since 2022, and has received nearly 19 million calls. In September 2026 alone, 988 received 536k calls, 163k texts, and 102k chats.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Health system margins have recovered from record lows, but the median margin remains just over 1%, leaving organizations with little room for error. Sustainable margin isn't simply the biggest number an organization can generate. It's the ability to reliably fund operations, reinvest in the future, absorb unexpected shocks, and avoid destabilizing cuts.

In this episode, host Rae Woods speaks with Advisory Board experts Chelsea Needham and Clare Wirth about why leaders need to stop managing revenue cycle, workforce, operations, and growth as separate priorities and start treating them as an interconnected margin system. They explore the ripple effects of common margin initiatives, the opportunity costs behind strategic decisions, and the questions leaders should ask before approving their next financial improvement effort. Listen to learn how health system executives can build margin that is not only stronger today, but more sustainable over the long term.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

For years, healthcare leaders have debated whether the industry faces a true physician shortage or simply a physician capacity problem. But as physicians near retirement, workforce fatigue persists, and organizations struggle to recruit providers fast enough to meet growing demand, that debate is taking on new urgency.

In this episode, hosts Rae Woods and Abby Burns sit down with Advisory Board expert Daniel Kuzmanovich to revisit a prediction they made nearly a decade ago: that healthcare could avoid a physician shortage if organizations redesigned care delivery and deployed care teams differently. Together, they unpack what has changed in the physician workforce since then, why advanced practice providers may be healthcare's greatest untapped source of clinical capacity, and how leaders should balance workforce strategy, care model redesign, and AI investments as they plan for the future of care delivery.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

While most health plans have at least begun testing AI tools to improve operational efficiency, a far smaller number have moved beyond pilot stage. The challenge is not merely adopting AI – it is deciding which processes to reimagine and which solutions merit investment; doing the work of embedding solutions in end-to-end workflows; measuring success; and, crucially, establishing the organizational alignment needed to generate value at scale.

In this episode, host Rae Woods sits down with Troy Anderson, Vice President of Payer Solutions at Optum.ai, and Sally Kim, Advisory Board health plan expert. They talk about why payment integrity and member experience are rising to the top of health plans’ priority list for deploying AI, and how regional plans can learn from larger organizations, focus on proven value, and avoid costly mistakes in the early stages of investment and deployment.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Healthcare organizations may be investing in AI, but many struggle to advance use cases beyond a single specialty, site, or workflow.

At Sutter Health, leaders approached AI not as a series of technology pilots, but as a systemwide operational challenge. They set out to ensure that investments in AI centered on supporting clinicians across the enterprise before, during, and after patient visits. Today, more than 6,000 clinicians use ambient listening technology, generating more than five million clinical notes. Reaching that level of adoption required much more than selecting the right tool.

In this episode, host Rachel (Rae) Woods speaks with Dr. Veena Jones, Chief Medical Informatics Officer at Sutter Health, about what it takes to move beyond siloed experimentation and actually scale AI across an enterprise. They explore how thoughtful governance, meaningful multistakeholder feedback loops, and a “good enough to scale” mindset can turn promising technology into a sustainable capability that supports clinicians and patients.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Health systems across the country started calling Advisory Board with the same question: Why are our volumes down?

In this episode, Abby Burns, Clare Wirth, and Vidal Seegobin walk through what happened after our research team dug into the data to find out whether those concerns were isolated incidents or part of a broader national trend. What they found raises a much bigger question than whether volumes are down today: What if they're not coming back the way we've assumed they would?

Together, they debate the forces reshaping demand, from affordability pressures and coverage losses to site-of-care shifts and changing patient behavior. They also explore what the findings mean for health system growth strategies and why organizations may need to shift their focus from capturing volume to competing on access.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

For years, the story of ambulatory surgery centers was all about moving care out of the hospital. But the most important ASC trend today isn't growth. It's variation.

Organizations are using ambulatory surgery centers to pursue very different goals. Some view ASCs as a way to relieve inpatient capacity. Others are trying to lower costs, protect market share, recruit physicians, expand access, or create room for more complex hospital care. And those strategies can vary dramatically depending on the service line, ownership model, market dynamics, and state policy environment.

In this episode, host Rae Woods talks with Advisory Board researchers Nick Hula, Gaby Marmolejos, and Rachael Peroutky about why no two ASC strategies look exactly alike, and how healthcare leaders can determine the right role for ASCs in their market.

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.

Protecting provider margins has never been easy. But today’s combination of policy shifts, reimbursement changes, labor pressures, and evolving care models is forcing health systems to rethink where margin comes from and how to sustain it.

In this episode, Abby Burns sits down with Optum Advisory’s Samantha Wyld and Jess Garber to explore how both sweeping policy changes and smaller regulatory updates are reshaping margin management. Through real-world examples, they unpack three areas of opportunity: pricing strategy, clinical documentation and coding, and capturing economies of scale many organizations have yet to realize. Together, they explain why yesterday’s margin playbook is no longer enough and what it takes to take a more strategic approach to financial performance.

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Sponsor link: Quick Guide | Rethinking iodine contrast use: A stewardship maturity model

A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.