Chris Boyer and Reed Smith run a forensic walk through five dated, citable moments where the future of healthcare consumerism was sitting in published research before the industry moved. The Pew health-seeker data in 2000. ePatient Dave's "Gimme My Damn Data" keynote in 2009, which took twelve years to reach the Information Blocking Rule. Mobile crossing into everyday health behavior by 2012. Apple, Amazon and Haven all declaring healthcare a priority inside twelve months in 2018 and 2019. Peer-reviewed AI matching dermatologists in 2017, three years before most people had heard of ChatGPT.

The signals were never really about the technology. Each one was a permission a consumer gave themselves. Permission to research without asking. Permission to demand their data. Permission to expect everywhere and anytime. Permission to compare a hospital to Apple. Permission to skip the front door. Name the permission and you have found the signal.

Five artifacts, each with a date and a source, and the same defensive industry response to all of them

A six-marker test that tells you whether you are inside a signal while it is still a signal, not after

Why the permission shift is the marker most teams miss, and the permission patients are taking right now

The scoreboard for today: agentic AI as the new front door, the death of click-through, the restructuring of primary care, and voice

The one current signal that breaks the pattern, and why ambient documentation moved fast when nothing else did

The honest finding is uncomfortable. Three of today's four signals score 5 or 6 out of 6 on the same markers that flagged every past miss. The fourth, voice, scores about 3, and it shows what breaks the pattern. Ambient documentation moved quickly because it helps clinicians and patients in the same motion, so the internal politics line up instead of fighting.

If you can name the permission your patients are taking right now, you have found the signal. The only question left is whether you act inside the window or wait for the deadline.

Mentions from the Show:

Pew Research Center, The Online Health Care Revolution, Rainie and Fox, November 2000: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2000/11/26/the-online-health-care-revolution/

Pew Research Center, Health Online 2013, Fox and Duggan, January 2013: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/01/15/health-online-2013-2/

deBronkart and Eysenbach, Gimme My Damn Data (and Let Patients Help!): The #GimmeMyDamnData Manifesto, JMIR, November 2019: https://www.jmir.org/2019/11/e17045/

Esteva et al., Dermatologist-level classification of skin cancer with deep neural networks, Nature, January 2017: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature21056

Tom Ferguson and the e-Patient Scholars Working Group, e-Patients: How They Can Help Us Heal Healthcare, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 2007: https://participatorymedicine.org/e-Patient_White_Paper_with_Afterword.pdf

Tim Cook on CNBC's Mad Money, full transcript, January 8 2019: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/01/08/apple-ceo-tim-cook-interview-cnbc-jim-cramer-transcript.html

Kyndryl, Healthcare Readiness Report, March 2026 (76% report more AI pilots than they can scale): https://www.kyndryl.com/in/en/about-us/news/2026/03/healthcare-readiness-report-findings

Dave deBronkart, Meet e-Patient Dave, TED: https://www.ted.com/talks/dave_debronkart_meet_e_patient_dave

Eric Topol, Deep Medicine, Basic Books, 2019: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/eric-topol/deep-medicine/9781541644649/

Eric Topol, The Patient Will See You Now, Basic Books, 2015

Clayton Christensen, Jerome Grossman, Jason Hwang, The Innovator's Prescription, McGraw-Hill, 2009

Dave deBronkart, Let Patients Help!, 2013

Society for Participatory Medicine: https://participatorymedicine.org/

TP483, The Market That Competition Forgot: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp483-the-market-that-competition-forgot/

TP478, The Journey Nobody Told Operations About: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp478-the-journey-nobody-told-operations-about/

TP457, The Patient Maze: Smarter Tools, Same Old Problems: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp457-the-patient-maze-smarter-tools-same-old-problems/

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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Chris Boyer and Reed Smith walk through why the gap is structural rather than a marketing problem, then close with David Middendorf at Monigle on what Volume 9 actually says about where consumers are right now.

Why engagement in health and engagement with healthcare have decoupled, and what the avoidance number among the most engaged segment actually means

The structural reasons the operating model can't win this space, from P&L logic to service-line measurement to where wellness programs sit on the org chart

The DTC and subscription brands that took categories that used to be referrals inside a health system, and built continuous relationships around them

Why a majority of consumers now believe a technology company is more likely to revolutionize healthcare than a traditional system or provider

Trust, local knowledge, the provider relationship, the clinical record, and what it would take to actually deploy those as competitive advantages

David Middendorf on the "window not a wave" framing, AI as connective tissue for what Monigle calls a Living System of Experiences, and the three keys to the future: listening, personalization, wellness

David Middendorf leads the Humanizing Brand Experience research at Monigle. Volume 9 is the ninth annual installment of the firm's flagship study of healthcare consumer behavior. He joins the show to walk through what the new data is saying and what health system brand and experience leaders should do about it.

If your strategy deck still treats the space between sick visits as future state, the disruption has already happened and you missed it.

Mentions from the Show:

Monigle, Humanizing Brand Experience Vol. 9: Healthcare Edition, 2026: https://www.monigle.com/insights/humanizing-brand-experience-volume-9-healthcare-edition

David Middendorf on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-middendorf-195b924/

Monigle: https://www.monigle.com/

Global Wellness Institute, Global Wellness Economy Monitor 2025, November 2025: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/industry-research/2025-global-wellness-economy-monitor/

Global Wellness Institute, US Wellness Economy Reaches $2 Trillion, March 2025: https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/gow-us-econ-valued-at-2trillion/

Kaufman Hall, National Hospital Flash Report, December 2025 data, February 2026: https://www.kaufmanhall.com/insights/research-report/national-hospital-flash-report-december-2025-data

HealthLeaders, Hospital Margins Stabilize as 'New Normal' Takes Hold, February 2026: https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/ceo/hospital-margins-stabilize-new-normal-takes-hold

Hims & Hers Health, Q4 and Full Year 2025 Financial Results, February 2026: https://investors.hims.com/news/news-details/2026/Hims--Hers-Health-Inc--Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2025-Financial-Results/default.aspx

TP481, Building the Schema App With Martha Van Berkel: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp481-building-the-schema-app-with-martha-van-berkel/

TP488, A Marketing-Led Approach to Patient Reactivation: https://touchpoint.health/podcast/tp488-a-marketing-led-approach-to-patient-reactivation/

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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For twenty years, hearing the patient meant owning a Voice of Customer program. A survey, a tool, a dashboard you showed the board. On May 18, Qualtrics closed its 6.75 billion dollar acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta. The instrument the majority of U.S. hospitals use to hear their patients is now part of a cross-industry experience platform with its own roadmap.

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith take that deal apart and ask who, inside the building, still works for the patient once the listening tool belongs to someone else.

This is the third Touch Point in a row circling the same observation. TP485 argued digital equity is a clinical operations problem the health system can no longer outsource. TP487 argued the front door moved off the property. TP489 closes the pattern. The listening apparatus moved too.

The episode argues marketing should stop being the collector of patient voice and become its advocate. Owning a program means making the signal presentable. Advocacy means being the named person accountable for the patient's voice surviving contact with a budget meeting. That role has a cost, and the episode names it plainly.

If your health system would not fund a single internal advocate to carry the patient's voice into the room, you have already priced what that voice is worth to you.

Mentions and links:

Qualtrics, Qualtrics Acquires Healthcare Experience Leader Press Ganey Forsta for $6.75 Billion, PR Newswire, May 2026: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/qualtrics-acquires-healthcare-experience-leader-press-ganey-forsta-for-6-75-billion-302774876.html

Becker's Hospital Review, Qualtrics completes $6.75B deal for Press Ganey, May 2026: https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/digital-health/qualtrics-completes-6-75b-deal-for-press-ganey/

CMSWire, After Uncertainty, Qualtrics Closes Deal on $6.75B Press Ganey Forsta Acquisition, May 2026: https://www.cmswire.com/customer-experience/after-uncertainty-qualtrics-finalizes-6-75-billion-acquisition-of-press-ganey-forsta/

Healthcare IT News, Qualtrics eyes a data engine to predict the experiences patients want, May 2026: https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/qualtrics-eyes-data-engine-predict-experiences-patients-want

AHA Center for Health Innovation, What the Qualtrics Acquisition of Press Ganey Forsta Will Mean for Health Care, October 2025: https://www.aha.org/aha-center-health-innovation-market-scan/2025-10-14-what-qualtrics-acquisition-press-ganey-forsta-will-mean-health-care

Qualtrics, Synthetic Data for Market Research FAQ, February 2026: https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/strategy-research/synthetic-data-market-research/

b2b International, AI in Market Research: The Limitations of Synthetic Data, August 2025: https://www.b2binternational.com/publications/ai-in-market-research-the-limitations-of-synthetic-data/

Customer Experience Dive, How synthetic data might shape consumer research, November 2024: https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/synthetic-data-consumer-research-customer-journey-qualtrics/732408/

Bain & Company, How Synthetic Customers Bring Companies Closer to the Real Ones, June 2025: https://www.bain.com/insights/how-synthetic-customers-bring-companies-closer-to-the-real-ones/

CMS, HCAHPS: Patients' Perspectives of Care Survey, 2025: https://www.cms.gov/medicare/quality/initiatives/hospital-quality-initiative/hcahps-patients-perspectives-care-survey

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47% of health systems have no clear owner for patient activation. CMOs call it the biggest untapped growth opportunity in healthcare. Marketing has the strongest unclaimed toolkit for the work. Chris Boyer and Reed Smith on whether marketing claims the category, and what it accepts in return.

This week's episode runs a thought experiment. What if marketing simply claimed the category. Not partial credit. Not co-ownership with clinical operations. The whole thing, identification through completed care. Chris Boyer and Reed Smith map the teams currently sharing the work, the asymmetric capability marketing brings to it, and the operational accountability marketing has to absorb to make the claim defensible.

If the largest unclaimed growth category in healthcare is sitting on your desk and your function has the strongest unclaimed toolkit for it, the question isn't whether you want it. It's whether you're willing to be measured on completed care.

Mentions from the Show:

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TP342 argued that patient access doesn't begin when someone calls for an appointment. It begins much earlier, in the digital layer, before the patient is sure they need care. That premise held. What changed is who owns the layer. Three years ago, the digital layer was something a health system could design, instrument and measure. Today, the patient's first contact happens in a synthesis interface no health system controls.

Chris and Reed revisit TP342 this week with a brief intro that connects Reed's "AI and Access" thesis on LinkedIn to the original argument, an honest update on where the premise held, and a frame for listening back with three years of new context.

In this encore conversation, Chris and Reed cover:

If access begins in a layer you don't own, then every digital investment downstream of it is downstream of someone else's interface.

Mentions from the Show:

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60% of healthcare marketing AI spend goes to writing copy. 6% goes to identifying patients who need care.

Live from HMPS26 in Salt Lake City, Chris Boyer is joined by Craig Blake of Amsive Health, Jane Crosby of True North Custom and John Berndt of Valtech Health for a panel conversation on what the conference and the new Health System CMO Survey exposed about marketing's role inside health systems.

The conversation opens with data and targeting and how the aging population is reshaping who marketers need to reach. It shifts to patient activation and the goldmine of existing patients sitting unactivated inside the system, then to loyalty and the structural problem of marketing's measurement gap. 72% of departments don't track campaigns through to completed care. 47% have no clear owner for activating existing patients.

The panel takes a hard look at the simple prescription that "outside thinking will fix this," with Jane and John pushing back on the assumption that CMOs from other industries can move faster inside healthcare than the people already there. The conversation closes on AI: where it's actually being deployed in health systems, why most spend lands on content production rather than patient identification, and how LLM disruption is starting to show up at urgent care visits.

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In 2025, U.S. digital health startups raised $14.2 billion. AI-enabled companies captured 54% of it. Every prediction in every roundup carries one quiet assumption underneath it. The patient on the receiving end can use what's being built.

The Pew data from January says something different.

Two trajectories. One looks like progress in aggregate. The other looks like the patients with the worst health outcomes being structurally locked out of the system that's being built. Chris Boyer and Reed Smith examine what happens when digital strategy and health equity stop being parallel tracks and become the same problem.

Why the 2026 AI investment narrative quietly assumes a digitally capable patient, and what the population data actually shows

The smartphone-dependent patient most health systems haven't internalized, and why portal UX fails them by design

Why disparities in patient portal access are widening for low-income, less-educated and 65-plus populations, even as overall use rises

What the 2025 cancellation of federal digital equity funding means for health systems whose patient panels actually need the work done

Modality mix as the reframe: digital, phone, in-person and printed channels as a portfolio allocated by segment, not a hierarchy everyone migrates toward

The University of Michigan study published in JAMA Network Open in October is the one to anchor on. Researchers looked at 511 hospitals in 51 counties in 17 states where census data showed at least 300,000 LEP residents. 29% of those hospitals offered the patient portal login in English only. 60% offered English plus Spanish. 11% offered three or more languages. In counties specifically chosen because they have hundreds of thousands of patients who don't speak English at home.

If your most-invested-in digital experience reaches the patients who already had the most options, and barely touches the patients with the worst outcomes, what is your digital strategy actually optimizing for?

Mentions from the Show:

Pew Research Center, NPORS 2025, January 2026: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026/01/08/internet-use-smartphone-ownership-digital-divides-in-u-s/

Pew Research Center, Internet/Broadband Fact Sheet, December 2025: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/

Pew Research Center, Mobile Fact Sheet, December 2025: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/

OATS / Benton Institute, 19 Million Older Adults Lack Broadband, 2025: https://www.benton.org/blog/19-million-older-adults-lack-broadband

Shah & Fiala, Disparities in Patient Portal Access and Utilization, Journal of General Internal Medicine, January 2025: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-025-09359-z

Chen et al. (U-Michigan), Language Barriers and Access to Hospital Patient Portals in the US, JAMA Network Open, October 2025: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news-events/news/language-barriers-health-care-have-fallen-not-online-study-shows

Healthcare Dive, Top healthcare AI trends in 2026 (Rock Health funding data), January 2026: https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/top-healthcare-ai-artificial-intelligence-trends-2026/809493/

HIT Consultant / CB Insights, Q1 2026 Digital Health Funding, April 2026: https://hitconsultant.net/2026/04/20/digital-health-funding-q1-2026-ai-ma-rebound/

Chief Healthcare Executive, AI in health care: 26 leaders offer predictions for 2026, January 2026: https://www.chiefhealthcareexecutive.com/view/ai-in-health-care-26-leaders-offer-predictions-for-2026

JMIR, Bridging Rural America's Digital Divide in Health Care, December 2025: https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e88833

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School, Bridging the Digital Divide in Health Care: A New Framework for Equity, January 2025: https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2025/bridging-the-digital-divide-in-health-care-a-new-framework-for-equity

NPR, How ending the Digital Equity Act has disrupted programs to help people get online, November 2025: https://www.npr.org/2025/11/12/nx-s1-5594805/how-ending-the-digital-equity-act-has-disrupted-programs-to-help-people-get-online

ScienceDirect narrative review, Addressing language barriers in U.S. healthcare, November 2025: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772632025000418

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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91% of healthcare marketers say data drives their decisions. 1% can connect the majority of their spend to actual outcomes. That gap is the headline statistic of FreshPaint's 2026 State of Healthcare Marketing report. It's also the wrong place to start the conversation.

The harder question isn't whether healthcare marketers can close the attribution gap. It's whether the attribution model the industry has been chasing was ever the right tool for the business healthcare is actually in.

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith open the episode with the two structural issues hiding behind the 91/1 paradox, then sit down with Ray Mina, the new CEO of FreshPaint, to walk through the report and what FreshPaint sees across hundreds of health systems managing roughly $2 billion in ad spend.

Chris and Reed examine:

Why the referring physician is the biggest specialty care channel that no attribution model can see

The brand window mismatch, why work that compounds over 18 months keeps getting measured in a 30-day window

How the 95:5 reality (most patients aren't in-market this week) breaks the assumptions performance dashboards are built on

How attribution model choice (last-click, first-touch, linear, data-driven) quietly decides which work gets credit, and why most teams never make the choice on purpose

The CFO shadow attribution problem, why marketing's ROI numbers and finance's numbers align only 54% of the time, and what happens in the 46%

Ray's interview lands the practitioner perspective. The 2026 report puts data behind what most marketing leaders are feeling, the era of good enough is over, the Google trap is real and quantifiable, the four-tier maturity spectrum has only 1 to 3% of organizations operating at the top. Ray is honest that getting there is a significant investment, and that the tools have caught up in a way they hadn't three years ago. The conversation gets specific about what's now achievable, what isn't, and what the path looks like for organizations that don't have a Clint Paul or a Blair Premis to lead the work.

If your attribution dashboard tells you brand isn't working, check which model you're running before you cut the budget. The answer the dashboard gives depends on the question the model was built to answer.

Mentions from the Show:

FreshPaint 2026 State of Healthcare Marketing report: https://www.freshpaint.io/state-of-healthcare-marketing

Ray Mina on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymina/

FreshPaint: https://www.freshpaint.io/

Marketing Rounds podcast (FreshPaint, on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/@freshpaintio/podcasts

Binet & Field, "The Long and the Short of It," IPA: https://ipa.co.uk/knowledge/effectiveness-research-analysis/les-binet-peter-field

John Dawes / Ehrenberg-Bass on the 95:5 rule: https://marketingscience.info/news-and-insights/prof-byron-sharp-skewers-binet-tells-marketers-to-sack-agencies-preaching-share-of-voice

Forrest et al., "Dropping the Baton: Specialty Referrals in the United States" (PMC): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3160594/

Improvado Healthcare Marketing Strategy Guide 2026: https://improvado.io/blog/healthcare-marketing-strategy-complete-2026-guide

ABA Advertising, "Why Attribution Models in Healthcare Fail," October 2025: https://abaadvertising.com/industry-insights/why-attribution-models-in-healthcare-fail-and-what-to-do-about-it/

Patient Daily on multi-touch attribution in healthcare, January 2026: https://patientdaily.com/stories/679604830-multi-touch-attribution-models-help-healthcare-marketers-improve-campaign-measurement

McKinsey, "The CMO's Comeback," 2025: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-cmos-comeback-aligning-the-c-suite-to-drive-customer-centric-growth

Duke CMO Survey, Fall 2025 (34th edition): https://cmosurvey.org/marketers-claim-a-broader-role-and-increased-influence-amid-pressures/

Uptempo CMO vs. CFO survey, 2025: https://www.uptempo.io/ebook/cmo-vs-cfo/

Michael Kaminsky (Recast), HBR, September 2025: https://hbr.org/2025/09/when-cmos-and-cfos-align-their-kpis-they-deliver-more-value

Marketing Dive on the Perion / Advertiser Perceptions report, November 2025: https://www.marketingdive.com/news/the-cmo-cfo-relationship-heres-what-the-numbers-say/806122/

Pedowitz Group Revenue Marketing Index 2025 (citing Gartner CMO Spend Report 2024): https://www.pedowitzgroup.com/revenue-marketing-index

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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Of 266 metro areas studied by the Health Care Cost Institute, using 1.3 billion medical claims, only seven have hospital markets that qualify as genuinely competitive. New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. Riverside. Philadelphia. Miami. Washington, D.C. Everywhere else, patients in most service lines are not shopping. They are arriving. And healthcare built a decade of digital strategy on the premise that they were choosing.

That doesn't mean the premise was entirely wrong, and it doesn't mean the work was wasted. It means the consumerism frame that the industry borrowed from retail was always a partial fit, and the digital investments that had the most impact were often working for reasons the frame didn't quite describe. Insurance constrains patient options before anyone opens a browser. Crisis eliminates preference entirely. Specialist and complex care decisions follow referral patterns, not consumer shopping behavior. The "competitive market" that consumerism theory assumes exists reliably in about seven cities.

The friction-reduction work, though, was real and its effects are measurable. In June 2019, 10% of Americans had ever had a telehealth visit. Today 54% have, and 89% report satisfaction with their most recent virtual care experience. A 2025 access-to-care study found that 23.3% of patients who experienced appointment scheduling friction said it led to worsened health, and more than half switched providers. That work didn't succeed by winning a competitive fight. It succeeded by removing barriers that had always been there.

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith examine what the last decade of digital investment was actually accomplishing, where the consumerism frame helped and where it pointed the work in the wrong direction:

Why healthcare "choice" was always constrained by insurance networks, referral patterns and market structure, before anyone built a digital front door

What the friction-reduction work was actually doing, and why it had value the consumerism frame didn't fully explain

Price transparency as the case study for what happens when the wrong frame drives the deliverable

Why telehealth succeeded by removing access barriers rather than winning a consumer preference battle

What complexity management looks like as a forward frame, and why it applies to patients, staff and referring physicians equally

Price transparency is the sharpest example of the frame producing the wrong result. The CMS Hospital Price Transparency Rule was built on a consumerism premise: give patients price data, they will shop, prices will fall. As of November 2024, only 21% of hospitals were fully compliant with all requirements. The GAO found the published data so difficult to use that most stakeholders relied on third-party vendors just to make it parseable. The rule produced compliance behavior aimed at regulators. It did not produce a consumer tool. The frame predicted the wrong outcome.

If the work was never really about out-competing a rival health system, the question worth asking now is whether the experience built in most markets actually makes the complexity easier for the person who has no choice but to navigate it.

Mentions from the Show:

HCCI Health Cost Landscape, April 2026: https://healthcostinstitute.org/all-hcci-reports/what-is-the-health-cost-landscape/

AJMC / HCCI Healthy Marketplace Index: https://www.ajmc.com/view/nearly-75-of-us-hospital-markets-highly-concentrated-hcci-report-shows

Axios Future of Health Care Newsletter, April 2026: https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-future-of-health-care-ee174520-3387-11f1-8096-e7d285bf9bf6.html

Patient Rights Advocate, Seventh Semi-Annual Hospital Price Transparency Report, November 2024: https://www.paubox.com/blog/hospital-price-transparency-requirements-and-compliance-challenges

GAO-25-106995, Health Care Transparency, October 2024: https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-25-106995

Perficient Access to Care Research, 2025: https://blogs.perficient.com/2025/07/09/rethinking-access-to-care-maslow-and-transtheoretical-model-inform-smarter-digital-investments/

hims & hers National Survey / State of Telehealth 2025: https://www.dimins.com/blog/2025/04/03/the-state-of-telehealth-in-2025/

Press Ganey, Evolving Consumer Expectations in Healthcare, 2024: https://www.pressganey.com/hx-insights/the-evolving-expectations-of-todays-healthcare-consumer/

Commonwealth Fund, Consumer Choice in U.S. Health Care, 2021: https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/nov/consumer-choice-us-health-care-using-insights-from-past

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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Healthcare has been running AI pilots for three years. Most of them worked. Almost none of them scaled.

That's not a coincidence, and it's not a technology problem. A pilot is designed to succeed under favorable conditions: dedicated staff, narrow scope, a vendor highly motivated to deliver, and leadership that approved the project and needs it to justify the decision. None of those conditions survive contact with the enterprise. The pilot didn't reveal whether the technology could scale. It revealed whether the technology could perform in a demonstration.

The harder question — whether the organization itself is willing to change to support it — never gets formally asked. By the time the pilot ends, the window for asking it has usually closed. The results go into a deck. The deck gets presented once. The next pilot begins.

Chris Boyer and Reed Smith examine what perpetual piloting actually costs health systems, and why the gap between "we piloted this" and "we run this" is where most healthcare transformation quietly ends:

Why the conditions that make a pilot succeed are precisely what makes it an unreliable predictor of enterprise viability

How piloting became a way to signal innovation without requiring organizational change

Why the decision to pilot and the decision to scale are different decisions — and why most organizations only make the first one

What the one healthcare AI use case that has actually graduated pilots has in common with successful enterprise deployments in other industries

What it looks like to design a pilot you actually intend to graduate, starting before the pilot runs

A new Kyndryl study found 76% of healthcare organizations report having more AI pilot programs than they can scale. Not more than they've scaled. More than they can scale. That number is not a technology indictment. It's an organizational one.

The question for every health system running pilots right now isn't whether the technology worked. It did. The question is whether the organization is prepared to decide.

Mentions from the Show:

TP427: The Case for Failing Faster to Address Disruption: touchpoint.health

Kyndryl Research, March 2026: https://www.healthcareittoday.com/2026/03/08/bonus-features-march-8-2026-69-of-physicians-struggle-to-access-recent-records-from-outside-providers-76-of-healthcare-orgs-have-more-ai-pilot-programs-than-they-can-scale-plus/ 

Define Ventures C-Suite AI Survey via Healthcare Finance News, 2024: https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/payers-providers-increasing-investments-ai 

McKinsey, Reimagining Healthcare Service Operations in the Age of AI, 2024: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare/our-insights/reimagining-healthcare-industry-service-operations-in-the-age-of-ai

Bain & Company / KLAS Research, Healthcare IT Investment: AI Moves from Pilot to Production, October 2025: https://www.bain.com/insights/healthcare-it-investment-ai-moves-from-pilot-to-production/

Reed Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/reedtsmith/

Chris Boyer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisboyer/

Chris Boyer website: http://www.christopherboyer.com/

Chris Boyer on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/chrisboyer.bsky.social

Reed Smith on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/reedsmith.bsky.social

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