Relentless Health Value

Relentless Health Value

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Relentless Health Value episodes

  • EP291: What Are Medicare Advantage Plans Up to Right About Now? With Betsy Seals, Cofounder of the Rebellis Group

    In this Episode 291, Stacey Richter talks with Betsy Seals, cofounder and chief operating officer of the Rebellis Group, about what Medicare Advantage plans are up to right now.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why disenrollment rates and member complaints are top of mind for MA plan leaders right now

    ✅ How CMS's midyear benefit-change flexibility let MA plans respond to members' pandemic-driven needs

    ✅ Why supplemental benefits are becoming a bigger factor in how beneficiaries choose a plan

    ✅ Why understanding local social determinants of health matters more than ever for MA plans

    ✅ What providers should understand about partnering with MA plans right now

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Betsy Seals explains that Medicare Advantage plans are under real pressure to prove their value beyond just network adequacy — beneficiaries now expect telehealth, supplemental benefits, and a plan that actually understands the social determinants affecting their local population. CMS's pandemic-era flexibility to adjust benefits midyear gave plans a chance to respond in real time, and how they used that flexibility will likely shape enrollment in the coming annual enrollment period. For providers, Seals sees a missed opportunity: closer partnership with MA plans, built on a shared understanding of how the market and beneficiary expectations have shifted.

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    03:45 What is a Medicare Advantage plan?

    04:02 The core imperatives for leaders of Medicare Advantage plans.

    04:31 "How is risk adjustment functioning?"

    04:34 Making disenrollment rates and member complaints top of mind for MA leaders.

    05:40 "We all want to know why members are leaving. Well, they're telling you!"

    05:50 Star rating measures.

    07:33 "Will Medicare beneficiaries really have confidence … going into the doctor's office … next year?"

    09:11 "Now, it's not just 'Is your doctor in the network?' It's 'Does your plan also offer telehealth?'"

    12:13 "When you really look at Medicare beneficiaries aging into the program or … younger … beneficiaries, their shopping trends and their consumer expectations are very much the same as yours and mine."

    13:58 CMS's adjustment in April that allows MA plans to make changes to their benefits midyear to provide to beneficiaries' changing needs during the pandemic.

    16:01 Supplemental benefits as a decision-making factor in enrollees' Medicare Advantage plan selection.

    16:28 "The decisions made during this time with how to increase benefits or how to address the issues going on with your membership will have a really great impact on [your] AEP [annual enrollment period]."

    18:12 "I think that there's a real lack of understanding … around what issues are impacting their actual membership … but really understanding the demographics and the social determinants of health that are impacting your local landscape."

    19:30 "Health care's not always related to in-office doctor visits."

    19:40 "I really do think that CMS is headed … to understanding that federal dollars for the Medicare program should not just be spent on doctor's visits or screenings."

    21:10 "I think that there's been a real shift in … what we understand now and also what we're able to predict."

    23:24 Where Medicare Advantage plans fall in addressing population health management, working with hospital organizations, and social determinants of health.

    24:24 Betsy's advice for providers dealing with MA plans.

    24:46 "I … think that this is … a missed opportunity [for] provider and plan partnership in a lot of ways."

    26:07 "Really understanding that the market has shifted and the way the beneficiaries enroll this year is going to be very different than it ever has been before."

    29:25 "One thing that shouldn't be overlooked is that we really have an opportunity to dig into the data."

    33 min
  • Encore! EP225: Why, Right Now, It Is No Longer Optional to Suck at Patient Centricity, With Joe Selby, MD, MPH, Former Executive Director of PCORI

    In this Encore episode 225, Stacey Richter replays her conversation with Joe V. Selby, MD, MPH, former executive director of PCORI (the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute), about why patient centricity is no longer optional.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why patient-centric care often leads to lower, not higher, utilization

    ✅ How shared decision making changes the default course of treatment, using back surgery as an example

    ✅ What PCORnet is and how it links health system data with claims data for better research

    ✅ Why getting health systems to actually use PCORI's research findings is the hardest part of the job

    ✅ Why short-term results so often win out over long-term change in health care culture

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Joe Selby makes the case that patient-centric care isn't just the right thing to do — it's often the more cost-effective thing to do, since involving patients in shared decision making tends to reduce unnecessary utilization rather than increase it. PCORnet, the research network Selby helped build, links clinical data from health systems with claims data to answer questions that matter to patients and their bottom line, not just academic curiosity. His biggest frustration: getting that evidence to actually change entrenched clinical habits, since durable culture change is so much harder than achieving a short-term result.

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction

    05:36 Can payers afford to make health care patient-centric?

    05:59 "If you make care more patient-centric … you actually see decreases in utilization."

    06:32 Shared decision making.

    09:59 "What gets in the way of implementing good evidence?"

    10:08 A study involving community health workers.

    11:26 Default care and back surgery.

    13:45 "There's just a lot of habits like that in clinical care that aren't backed up by evidence and can be undone with good evidence."

    14:23 How Dr. Selby figures out what the patients want and what outcomes to focus on.

    14:48 Looking for evidence gaps.

    16:26 What PCORnet is and what they're doing.

    18:15 "To do really good quality research, you have to be able to link the data from health systems … to data from claims."

    19:32 "We're asking questions that matter to them, to their bottom line, and to their patients."

    19:37 What the main goal of PCORnet is—what or where?

    21:26 Giving and getting data as a health system.

    22:12 Studies that have come from PCORI's queries.

    25:31 "It's very important that the systems … appreciate that PCORnet is active in their midst."

    26:09 "It's hopefully a culture-changer, driving toward more collaboration and toward … finding common ground between people who are asking purely clinical questions and people who are asking the more practical questions."

    26:28 What frustrates Dr. Selby the most.

    28:39 Turn the Ship Around!—a book about short-term evaluation and short-term results vs long-term change.

    32 min
  • EP290: Shining a Light on the Crafty Gambits Used by Some (Not All) Hospital Billing Departments, With Doug Aldeen

    In this Episode 290, Stacey Richter talks with Doug Aldeen, a health care and ERISA attorney, about the crafty gambits some (not all) hospital billing departments have used during COVID-19.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why exploitive billing practices tend to show up when a hospital's mission statement and its finance team are on two different planets

    ✅ What a hospital's "scorched earth" billing policy looks like and who it can hurt

    ✅ Why hospital-owned insurance plans, or "payviders," create their own set of exploitive billing risks

    ✅ How reference-based pricing (RBP) works and where it fits into the fight over fair pricing

    ✅ Why educating employees on what care actually costs is a critical part of the solution

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Doug Aldeen has spent two decades negotiating with hospital finance teams on behalf of self-insured employers, and he lays out the gap between what hospitals say their mission is and how their billing departments actually behave — especially during COVID, when some hospitals leaned harder into aggressive billing tactics even as they were being financially squeezed by the pandemic. From scorched-earth collection policies to payvider conflicts of interest to reference-based pricing disputes, Aldeen walks through the mechanics employers and patients need to understand, plus what it actually takes to push back.

    MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

    🔗 EP242, with Marty Makary, MD

    🔗 EP186, with David Contorno

    🔗 EP240, with Olivia Ross

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    03:59 Exploitive hospital billing practices.

    04:20 The impact these exploitive billing practices have on patients.

    04:45 Why would a hospital exploit the patient with their billing practices?

    09:31 "You could adversely affect 3 million people."

    10:53 The "scorched earth" policy.

    11:33 EP242 with Marty Makary, MD.

    12:28 "I think the long-term plan … is preserving the network."

    13:08 EP186 with David Contorno.

    16:03 A third exploitive billing process: hospital-owned insurance plans, or "payviders."

    20:35 MOOP: maximum out of pocket.

    21:07 RBP: reference-based pricing.

    21:58 Exploitive tactic #4.

    26:03 The solution to changing exploitive billing strategies.

    26:39 "You have to be willing to travel."

    28:34 EP240 with Olivia Ross.

    28:47 "It's educating your employees and really having an honest conversation about 'This is what it really costs.'"

    30:28 Doug's advice to hospital execs listening right now.

    34 min
  • EP289: The Right Amount of Oncology Screening and Care—In a Pandemic and Not in a Pandemic, With Bishal Gyawali, MD, PhD

    In this Episode 289, Stacey Richter talks with Bishal Gyawali, MD, PhD, a medical oncologist and assistant professor at Queen's University, about finding the right amount of oncology screening and care — in a pandemic and not in a pandemic.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why more care isn't automatically better care, and what to focus on instead

    ✅ Why the distinction between "survival" and "mortality" matters so much in cancer outcomes research

    ✅ How financial toxicity from cancer treatment can be as dangerous to patients as the disease itself

    ✅ Why conflicts of interest on guideline committees can distort what counts as standard of care

    ✅ What payers, hospitals, and individual clinicians can each do to pay for value instead of volume

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Dr. Bishal Gyawali argues that American health care has a cultural bias toward "more is better," when the data often say otherwise — especially in oncology, where aggressive treatment isn't always the highest-value treatment. He makes the case for being data driven rather than reflexively pro- or anti-intervention, for reevaluating cancer screening protocols against the evidence, and for taking financial toxicity as seriously as any other clinical risk factor, since patients who face financial toxicity have been shown to die earlier. His prescription touches every level of the system: guideline committees free of industry conflicts, payers who negotiate drug prices based on clinical benefit, and hospitals that offer real price transparency and financial counseling.

    MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

    🔗 EP282, with Aaron Mitchell, MD, MPH

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    03:18 Oncology decisions on the individual level and oncology policy decision making.

    05:10 Reverting to the mean.

    06:29 "We're assuming … more care is good care, which is not necessarily true."

    06:49 "What we need to focus on is above-average level of health outcomes."

    07:55 "Sometimes we forget the goal, and we get so entangled in the path itself that we forget the destination."

    11:19 Cutting out low-value care during the pandemic.

    12:09 Reevaluating cancer screens and looking at the evidence for appropriate use cases.

    13:24 Distinguishing the term "survival" from "mortality."

    16:34 "If a person dies, it does not matter what the person died of."

    17:26 "A lot of the things that we do routinely in medical practice need to be reevaluated."

    18:53 The FDA approval of oncology agents and things that make a difference.

    20:37 "What exactly are we gaining from these drugs?"

    20:53 EP282 with Aaron Mitchell, MD, MPH.

    23:15 Dr. Gyawali's advice to policy decision makers.

    23:42 Policy decision-making interventions that are possible.

    24:50 "The problem with these guidelines … is that a lot of these people who are on these guidelines, they have huge conflicts of interest to the industry."

    26:58 How to pay less for low-value care.

    27:42 A better path forward to pay for value.

    31:02 Ways to help on the individual level.

    32:07 "At the end of the day, the ultimate use of an intervention happens in the clinic."

    34:24 "We should never be pro or anti anything; we should just be pro-data."

    36 min
  • EP288: The "Big Three" PBMs Spinning Up GPOs—What? With Mike Schneider, Principal at Avalere Health

    In this Episode 288, Stacey Richter talks with Mike Schneider, principal at Avalere Health, about why the "Big Three" PBMs are spinning up their own GPOs.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why Express Scripts, Optum, and CVS Caremark have each set up offshore group purchasing organizations (GPOs)

    ✅ How these new GPOs shift drug rebate negotiations away from the PBM and into a separate, less regulated entity

    ✅ Why an executive order requiring PBMs to pass rebates through to patients doesn't apply to these GPOs

    ✅ How the "Big Three" PBMs compete with each other despite structural similarities

    ✅ What a more transparent way to move money from Pharma to employers and plan sponsors could look like

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Mike Schneider walks through why Express Scripts' Ascent, Optum's Ireland operation, and CVS Caremark's Zinc all exist: by moving rebate negotiations with pharma into offshore GPOs rather than PBMs themselves, these entities sidestep new rules meant to force rebate transparency and pass-through to patients. It's a structural workaround that keeps the PBM world opaque even as regulators try to shine a light on it — and it raises the question of who actually benefits from the rebate system as currently constructed, since Schneider argues the government may be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

    MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

    🔗 EP216, with Chris Sloan

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    02:30 What does a GPO add to a PBM?

    05:05 Rebates vs driving more revenue.

    10:20 PBMs vs safe harbors.

    12:07 The net impact on the commercial side.

    13:48 PBMs vs pharmaceutical manufacturers.

    14:35 How the "Big Three" PBMs compete with each other, and how employers would choose between them.

    15:37 What the net-net is here.

    17:48 How PBMs are shifting their models.

    20:23 How GPOs may be making things even less transparent.

    21:11 "The PBM world as a whole is not very transparent."

    24:40 "One of the biggest beneficiaries of this whole rebate [system] is the government."

    25:25 "The question is, 'Who's paying those costs?'"

    25:40 EP216 with Chris Sloan.

    26:40 A better way to move money from Pharma to employers and plan sponsors.

    27:43 "Put your money where your mouth is."

    30 min
  • EP287: The Time for Entrepreneurial Physician Leaders Is Right Now, With Dan O'Neill, MA, MS

    In this Episode 287, Stacey Richter talks with Dan O'Neill, MA, MS, a consultant who spent a year on the Senate health committee's professional staff, about why this is a fantastic time to be an entrepreneurial physician leader.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why the old fee-for-service business model is losing its appeal even for risk-averse physicians

    ✅ How to separate venture- and growth-oriented practice investment from pure financial engineering

    ✅ Why moving away from "buy and bill" economics opens up new opportunities for specialists

    ✅ What questions a physician should ask before reinventing their practice model

    ✅ Why waiting around for change to walk in the door usually means it never will

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Dan O'Neill argues that physicians now have more room than ever to reinvent their practice models — shedding bloated overhead, embracing telehealth, and building new revenue approaches that better serve patients. Consumerism, rising technology expectations, Medicare's funding pressures, and employers pushing back on health care costs were already reshaping the landscape before COVID accelerated it further. O'Neill sees a real opening for insurers and self-funded employers to help independent physicians make this transition, since a wave of PCP practices going under would hurt everyone's cost and quality goals in the long run.

    MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

    🔗 EP282, with Aaron Mitchell, MD, MPH

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    02:37 Why switching revenues to a different model isn't simple.

    03:45 The segmentation approach we need to focus on.

    04:15 The straightforward answer for PCPs.

    04:27 The path forward for specialists.

    05:21 Moving away from "buy and bill" economics.

    05:31 EP282 with Aaron Mitchell, MD, MPH.

    07:36 Are health systems buying more practices, or are more practices becoming independent?

    09:22 "It starts from why are they making the investment and what is the thesis?"

    11:01 Separating the venture-/growth-oriented approach from the financial engineering approach.

    12:47 Opportunities for physicians with an entrepreneurial mind-set.

    15:55 "What services am I currently delivering?"

    21:37 The opportunity to do well by doing good.

    24:00 Health insurers as a barrier to change.

    24:54 "This is a good opportunity to affect real change."

    25:40 "If you're just waiting around for change, it's probably not gonna walk in the door."

    27:43 The attempt to reinvent care delivery.

    33 min
  • EP286: Advice for Health Systems in the Face of Consumerism and Value-based Contracts, With John Rodis, MD, MBA

    In this Episode 286, Stacey Richter talks with John Rodis, MD, MBA, a high-risk obstetrician and former hospital president, about what health systems should be doing in the face of consumerism and value-based contracts.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why Dr. Rodis believes an inflection point toward value is coming, driven by employers, physicians, brokers, and government all at once

    ✅ Why the conversation is shifting from comparing costs to comparing value

    ✅ What the four domains of value are and how health systems should think about them

    ✅ Why trust in health systems is starting to erode among purchasers and patients

    ✅ What health system executives should be doing right now to get ahead of this market shift

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    John Rodis has held nearly every job in health care, from practicing OB/GYN to hospital COO and CEO, and he sees four forces converging to force health systems toward a real day of reckoning: pressure from large employers, physicians rethinking fee-for-service risk, a new breed of transparent brokers, and cash-strapped state governments questioning a system that profits on the backs of taxpayers. Health systems that don't adjust to this new market — where value, not just cost, is the currency — are taking on real risk, and Rodis argues leaders need to take ownership of that transition rather than wait for it to be forced on them.

    MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

    🔗 EP279, with Peter Hayes

    🔗 EP281, with Rob Austin

    🔗 EP242, with Dr. Marty Makary

    🔗 EP257, with Karl Bilimoria, MD

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    02:16 How the scales are starting to rebalance.

    02:44 "There's going to be a day of reckoning."

    04:18 The risk a health system is taking by not adjusting to the market.

    05:20 Where are the nominal dollars coming from, and where might they come from in the future.

    08:04 EP279 with Peter Hayes.

    08:15 EP281 with Rob Austin.

    08:56 The difference in today's market when it comes to cost setting.

    10:02 Why the conversation is shifting from cost comparisons to value comparisons.

    11:34 Value is quality over cost.

    11:55 The four domains that go into value.

    12:32 EP242 with Dr. Marty Makary.

    14:01 "The problem in this market: It's not that free."

    16:48 Who is best equipped to be an arbiter of value in this new market system?

    18:49 "I think that trust is starting to erode."

    20:30 How payers are leading the charge on this market change.

    21:37 Dr. Rodis's advice to hospital and health system executives to get ahead of this market change.

    24:45 EP257 with Karl Bilimoria, MD.

    26:53 "I think you have to take ownership."

    28:08 "There's no real Four Seasons business [model] in health care."

    28:30 "Look at the entire episode of cost."

    29:51 Where bundling falls into this equation.

    31:45 Dr. Rodis's upcoming book.

    34 min
  • EP285: The Fascinating Story of Billions of Dollars Going Missing When the Back Office Pays Health Care Bills, With Dawn Cornelis, Cofounder and Director of Transparency at ClaimInformatics

    In this Episode 285, Stacey Richter talks with Dawn Cornelis, cofounder and chief transparency officer at ClaimInformatics, about the billions of dollars going missing when the back office pays health care bills.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why third-party bill payers who claim to review every claim still miss double-digit percentages in savings

    ✅ The difference between fraud, waste, and abuse — and why that distinction matters

    ✅ Why carriers don't always push for better systems to catch inappropriate payments

    ✅ How unbundling and weak enforcement let illegal billing slip through

    ✅ What it actually takes to identify and eliminate fraud in claims data

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Dawn Cornelis has spent 25 years auditing health care claims, and her experience suggests that when a third party specializing in bill payment says they've reviewed everything, that review often still misses a lot — ClaimInformatics regularly finds double-digit savings when they take a second look. With estimates putting total fraud, waste, and abuse in US health care at around a trillion dollars, this isn't a story about finding change in the couch cushions; it's a story about systemic gaps in how claims get reviewed and paid, and about carriers who don't always have the incentive to close those gaps themselves.

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    02:54 The story in the data.

    03:32 Who's submitting these claims?

    04:10 The three problems with the data.

    07:19 The varying factor between carrier systems to stop fraud, waste, and abuse.

    07:59 Why carriers don't push for better systems to stop inappropriate dollars.

    10:07 The difference between fraud, waste, and abuse.

    11:46 "When it becomes the norm, that's what's very bothering."

    12:13 The barriers or hurdles in the marketplace.

    15:35 What we don't know about but could do better at when looking at the data.

    18:01 "It's not so much the health system and what they are charging. It's about … what the contracted rate is agreed to. That's what drives our costs."

    19:02 "Data's fixed for itself."

    22:09 Identifying and eliminating fraud.

    22:14 Unbundling and the lack of enforcement behind preventing illegal billing.

    28:59 How providers ensure they aren't inadvertently harming employers and patients through billing.

    34 min
  • EP284: When Prescribers Know How Much a Drug Will Cost Patients at the Point of Prescribing, With Carm Huntress, CEO and Cofounder of RxRevu

    In this Episode 284, Stacey Richter talks with Carm Huntress, CEO and cofounder of RxRevu, about what happens when prescribers know how much a drug will cost patients at the point of prescribing.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ Why real-time drug price transparency tools are entering the EHR and e-prescribing workflow right now

    ✅ Who benefits — and who has an interest in shaping the picture — when a PBM-owned platform shows prescribers the price

    ✅ How showing total cost, patient cost, and alternatives at the point of prescribing changes physician behavior

    ✅ Why specialty drugs pose a particular challenge for price transparency tools

    ✅ Why every stakeholder in this system, PBMs included, has some kind of conflict of interest

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Carm Huntress explains how tools like RxRevu let prescribers see drug costs and lower-cost alternatives right at the point of prescribing, sparing patients the frustration of showing up at the pharmacy to discover their prescription is unaffordable. But this transparency wave comes with a wrinkle: Surescripts, which just launched a similar real-time price tool, is owned by several large PBMs, and the copay amount shown is itself a number the PBM controls. That doesn't make the tools bad, but it does mean prescribers should pay attention to the patterns the data reveals — like whether the cheapest option always happens to be at a PBM-owned pharmacy — and keep asking questions in the spirit of genuine transparency rather than accepting the numbers at face value.

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

    ✉️ Enjoy this podcast? Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter

    🫙 Support the podcast with a small donation to the Tip Jar

    📺 Subscribe to our YouTube channel

    🎤 Listen on Apple Podcasts

    🎤 Listen on Spotify

    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

    ✭ LinkedIn ✭ Threads ✭ Bluesky ✭ X

    00:00 Introduction.

    04:25 The protracted way doctors prescribe drugs right now.

    06:15 "What is the macro thing we want to have happen here?"

    08:10 Where we are today.

    08:38 Value-based contracts.

    10:10 Who is hurt by higher-cost alternatives.

    12:50 The number one thing doctors get out of drug cost transparency.

    13:20 The second thing doctors get out of drug cost transparency: patient satisfaction.

    13:55 The downside to drug cost transparency.

    14:40 "We gotta back up and just say, 'What do we want?'"

    16:30 How real-world evidence is going to affect drug pricing and rationalization.

    17:43 "They're waking up to the new world."

    20:20 How copays play into this.

    20:45 "What's the total cost, what's the patient cost, and what are the alternatives?"

    22:00 The history of formulary and benefit.

    26:41 The problem with specialty drugs.

    29:30 "Can we just start with first principles here?"

    29:40 "We don't really think about socio-economic factors."

    29:43 "What can you really pay?"

    31:00 Why do IDNs care about drug pricing transparency?

    35 min
  • EP283: Your Telehealth Success May Be a Launchpad for Health System Innovation and Human-centered Health Care, With Sylvia Romm, MD, MPH, Chief Innovation Officer at Atlantic Health System

    In this Episode 283, Stacey Richter talks with Sylvia Romm, MD, MPH, chief innovation officer at Atlantic Health System, about why telehealth success can be a launchpad for broader health system innovation and human-centered health care.

    WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

    ✅ What "human-centered health care" means, and how it borrows from customer-centered design

    ✅ How data can be folded into a more human-centered approach without losing the human touch

    ✅ How human-centered health care fits into the quadruple aim

    ✅ Why organizations need to understand the "why" behind an innovation initiative for it to succeed

    ✅ Why telehealth can be the first practical step toward deeper health system innovation

    WHY THIS MATTERS

    Sylvia Romm coined the term "human-centered health care" to describe what happens when health systems apply customer-centered design thinking to the patient and provider experience — removing friction points and building a continuum of care people actually want to engage with. Recorded just before COVID-19 hit, this conversation reframes telehealth not as an endpoint but as a first successful proof point that health systems can build on toward more human-centered innovation. Romm's take: the health systems that had already gotten telehealth right had a real head start on the deeper organizational change management this kind of innovation requires.

    === LINKS ===

    🔗 Show Notes with all mentioned links: Episode Page

    🔗 Healthcare Industry Acronyms and Terms

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    === CONNECT WITH THE RHV TEAM ===

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    00:00 Introduction.

    02:18 How Dr. Romm's background in research, public policy, and being a pediatric hospitalist intertwine to create great innovation strategies.

    03:22 "How do we look at populations?"

    03:31 "It's really about affecting the system in its entirety."

    04:33 What human-centered health care means.

    06:36 "You're only as effective as the rapport that you build with [this] person."

    08:05 "What do people really need … but also, what do they find valuable?"

    09:42 How data are folded into human-centered health care.

    11:55 "The endgame is to figure out … how to have a better experience."

    12:39 How this fits into the quadruple aim.

    17:19 "We are going to have to earn and learn agility."

    19:38 What has the most promise in deepening the connection between patients and providers.

    20:32 "Is this about you, and how do we know … how people outside feel about creating a relationship?"

    23:29 Is there a best practice for furthering the patient/doctor relationship from afar?

    24:24 The need for a variety of approaches to patient/doctor connections.

    27:30 What innovation initiatives need to be successful.

    28:07 "People have to understand the 'why.'"

    29:38 The classic tenets of change management.

    30:02 A challenge Dr. Romm is proud of having solved.

    31:56 Secret weapon: collaboration.

    33 min

About Relentless Health Value

From the publisher's feed

Welcome to Relentless Health Value, the podcast for those working in the belly of the beast to fix our fundamentally broken healthcare system. If you are a self-insured employer, plan sponsor, benefits consultant, clinician, a C-suite executive or anyone in the business of healthcare tired of the "transformational theater" and marketing fluff, you have found your tribe.

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